1899 ] STUDIES ON REDUCTION IN PLANTS “EE 
the mother cells have reached the proper state of maturation a 
few warm days in the winter or early spring months are sufficient 
for the two successive divisions. It appears that during tne 
winter season, when the nights are cool and the days warm, the 
mitotic figures may be prolonged for several days. For this. 
reason it is not difficult to prepare a large quantity of material 
in different stages of division. For the present study the 
material was collected during the month of February 1898. 
Some of this was growing in a garden where it was transplanted 
the year before, while the bulk of the material was collected 
from wooded ravines, from one to two miles distant from the 
laboratory, the plants being easily found by raking off the leaf 
covering on the ground. 
All the material was examined before fixing in order to 
know just the stage of division in individual plants, and even 
assorted into lots showing the spirem stage, first and second 
division, for convenience in cutting material of any desired stage. 
During division the chromosomes are so large and the cytoplasm 
so clear, one can easily determine the different stages with a 
one sixth objective, so that desired material could be assorted 
into that showing prophase, nuclear plate, anaphase, etc. In 
each individual flower, the tip of one of the stamens was removed, 
crushed in a drop of water on the slide, and examined first with 
a two thirds objective, then with a one sixth. In this way unde- 
sirable material could be rejected. 
Before placing in the Flemming solution, sometimes the tips 
of all the anthers were cut off, while other material was 
placed in the fixing solution with the anthers closed. After the 
removal of the sepals, petals, and the apex of the pistil, so that 
the fixing solution could enter the locules of the young carpels, 
the entire andreecium still attached to the receptacle was thrown 
into the solution. This made it possible to section several 
anthers of an individual flower together. 
The fixing solution used was Flemming’s chrom-osmium-acetic 
solution. The material remained in this from fifteen to twenty- 
four hours, was washed from twelve to twenty hours in cold 
