| 
| 
| 
| 
VAILLANTIA HISPIDA 19 
cotyledons into view, is accompanied by the dissolution of a zone 
of endosperm surrounding the embryo. The cells become mu- 
cilaginous, and the embryo is bathed in nutrient substance. The 
relative increase of absorbing surface by the development of 
the cotyledons is accompanied by the gradual loss of the haus- 
toria of the suspensor, of which there may be found, at the time 
of the ripening of the fruit, only a few of the disc-shaped cells. 
The last of these plays a small part in the formation of the radicle. 
THE INTEGUMENT 
The earlier development of the integument has already been 
described. Some time before complete maturity of the embryo- 
sac is reached the cells which form a zone (d, Fig. 1, Pl. 3) 
about the attachment of the funicle to the ovule become large and 
rounded (Pl. 3, Fig. 1, ۵ ( and their contents become strongly vac- 
uolated. These cells contain a good deal of starch at quite an 
early condition of the ovule, and when the accumulation of starch 
in the integument commences, the process has its beginning here. 
At the end of the vascular bundle when it reaches this zone of 
enlarged cells, is found a mass of cells which gives the bundle a 
club-shaped appearance in longitudinal section. These cells, 
like those of the leptome of the bundle, are rich in contents, and 
form a center for the distribution of food, which is received by the 
large-celled zone above referred to, the function of which appears 
to be the preparation of food and the regulation and distribution 
of the supply to the meristematic zone. The latter is made up of 
smaller cells (Figs. 12, 1c, Pl. 3), in which, after fertilization 
multiplication begins. Their dividing walls are periclinal, and 
there results a rapid thickening of the integument, with a corre- 
sponding increase of the ovary wall, accompanied by secondary 
changes leading to the formation of a schizocarp. Within the 
meristematic zone the integumental tissue shows signs of disin- 
tegration, and this process appears to be as rapid and complete in 
the tissue surrounding the basal antipodal as in that about the 
endosperm region. We may notice in this connection that the 
mass of disintegrated megaspores has after fertilization and before 
the first division of the proembryo almost disappeared (Pl. 2, 
Fig. 9; Pl. 3, Fig. 3) and the antipodal cells are difficult to 
