(319) 
brings it about that the hilum is removed from the chalaza 
and its position near the micropyle is attained. The chalaza 
is recognized as a center for the distribution of nutritive sub- 
stances to the nucellus andthe integuments. In C. leucantha 
he figures the endosperm in an advanced stage as occupying 
about half of a cavity in the nucellus and in form an ovoid 
mass with a tube-like prolongation at its lower end. The 
embryo is represented at this stage in about its proper size 
and appearance as a narrowly pyriform mass and of about 
one sixth the length of the endosperm. 
In 1842 Amici* studied the process of fertilization and 
development in Cucurdzta Pepo, but his work was faulty, as 
Schleiden later points out. Amici failed to recognize an 
embryo-sac in the unfertilized ovule, or prior to the opening 
of the flower. He thought he saw and accordingly described 
a canal extending through the apex of the nucellus, through 
which the pollen-tube passed in the process of fertilization. 
In the growth and development of the endosperm essentially 
the same features are represented as were shown by Mirbel 
in the case of Cucumzs leucantha, and in this respect he is cor- 
rect. In his figures his representations of the form and struc- 
ture of the ovule are in the main correct, but he failed to 
recognize the embryo and to interpret correctly the structures 
surrounding it. His observations, however, upon the rate of 
embryo-sac development after fertilization are worth noting 
as being the first record of such growth. He shows that the 
enlargement of the embryo-sac was apparent during the first 
day after fertilization. When the fruit is one and one half 
inches thick the coecum-like prolongation of the embryo-sac 
has elongated to about one fourth the length of the nucellus. 
In a fruit four inches in diameter, he shows, this tube has 
practically reached to the chalaza. 
Schleiden”™ in 1844 expresses surprise that no one in the 
company of botanists to whose attention Amici’s paper came 
was able to detect the errors which it contained, and declared 
that Amici had no knowledge of the ovule in general nor of 
* See Facchini.?? 
