(388 ) 
of Paconia. In the germination of the cocoanut starch is 
formed abundantly (Kirkwood and Gies“) from the reserve fats 
of the endosperm and this process is intra-cellular within the 
cotyledon. The absorption of fats then takes place, probably 
in an emulsified condition, through the cell-walls, and starch 
is formed from the products of their decomposition. Itis not 
easy to determine, in a structure so small as an embryo-sac, 
the presence of an emulsifying or adipolytic ferment by an 
experimental process, but it seems probable that such may 
occur. However, in the case of the cocoanut no such agent 
has been detected. 
It is evident that starch serves an important nutritive func- 
tion in the subsequent growth of the endosperm. Its very 
transient character, and the immediate expansion of the endo- 
sperm as a whole, indicate that it is consumed in the process. 
It can hardly be regarded as a nutritive medium for the 
embryo directly, inasmuch as the odspore exhibits very little 
growth until after the elongation of the endosperm, the multi- 
plication of its nuclei and the disappearance of the starch. 
The development of the embryo begins only after the endo- 
sperm has displaced part of the tissue of the nucellus. 
The general features of the growth and development of 
the endosperm in the Cucurbitaceae have been known for 
some time. Mirbel® (1815) observed that the perisperm in 
seeds of Cucurbita was very thin, that the cotyledons were 
large and broad. Again, in 1829,” he discusses the morphol- 
ogy of Cucumis Anguria and C. leucantha, and figures an 
ovule and the structures it contains after fertilization. In this 
particular case the endosperm occupies a large space in the 
nucellus and in form was ovoid with a tube-like prolongation 
at its lower end. The embryo at this stage he represented as 
narrow, pyriform, and about one-sixth the length of the endo- 
sperm. 
Schleiden,” in the second edition of his Grundziige der 
wissenschaftliche Botanzk, describes an ovuletof Cucurbita 
Pepo after fertilization and represents the embryo-sac as ex- 
tending from micropyle to chalaza. In another work” (1845) 
