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LIX. — EEMAEKS ON THE GAMETOPHOEE OE OOPHOEE 

 STAGE OF VEGETABLE METAGENESIS. By 

 PEOFESSOE W. E. M'NAB, M. D., F.L. S., &c. 



[Eead, April 20, 1885.] 



In the English, edition of Sachs' Text-Book of Botany the two 

 stages of the Alternation of Generations in plants are denomi- 

 nated the Sporophore and the Oophore, respectively ; the former 

 being the spore-forming generation, the latter the sexual stage. 

 While the term sporophore accurately expresses the conditions in 

 the one stage, the term oophore is only applicable to one of the 

 sexual forms, and is, therefore, open to objection, although that 

 one happens to be the more important of the two. In view of the 

 great importance of having an intelligible and easily applied series 

 of names for the reproductive organs of plants, it is advisable to 

 re-consider the whole matter, and the reasons for doing so are all 

 the more cogent because recently the subject of the sexual repro- 

 duction of the lower plants has received a great deal of attention, 

 and several new terms have been coined. No general set of terms 

 has as yet been agreed upon by botanists ; and as the reproductive 

 organs have the greatest possible diversity of origin and construc- 

 tion, very many names have been used, limited to special cases, 

 but none of general applicability. Sachs has well pointed out that 

 in the case of the vegetative organs of plants there is the same 

 plan of construction associated with the utmost diversity of func- 

 tion ; but that in the reproductive organs this is reversed, and 

 identity of function is attended with great diversity of structure 

 and mode of origin (Sachs, Vorlesungen, p. 886). 



The term gamete has been long employed to signify the sexual 

 cells of the lower forms of plants, and, by continuing to use this 

 term, we can by prefixing andro- and gyno- indicate the male and 

 female reproductive elements as androgametes and gynogametes. 

 These terms seem to me to be very much to be preferred to those 

 used by Sachs, namely "zoosperms" and "egg-cells" [Vorlesungen, 

 p. 887) ; because in many cases the male element is not a " zoo- 



