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cut at the surface of the soil, and the root systc:n in each left 

 undisturbed in the soil. The location of all such roots could be 

 easily seen by the wet place, around them for a week after the 

 removal of the vines. In some instances the otherwise dry soil 

 was moist for a foot or more from the stump and decidedly 

 muddy near the center of the wet circle. 



Up to the time when the vines were removed there had been 

 no hard frosts and the plants, still in flower, were loaded with 

 fruit and therefore the breaking of the roots was at a time when 

 they were active in taking up water. However, the flow was so 

 copious that the fact is mentioned with the thought that some 

 vegetable physiologist may find in the tomato a fruitful subject 

 for the study of the obscure phenomenon of "bleeding" in 

 plants. — Bryon D. Halsted. 



The Generative Divisions in Gymnosperms.* — In February, 

 1900, while examining a number of my slides made from the 

 ovules of Finns rigida, it was my good fortune to discover that 

 interesting division in the pollen tube which botanists had been so 

 eagerly seeking in conifers since the discovery of blepharoplasts 

 in Gingko, Cycas and Zaniia. Careful examination of several 

 slides, however, failed to bring to light the " reduced blepharo- 

 plasts " which had been predicted and further search for them 

 was abandoned ; but I was impressed with the peculiar fibrous 

 appearance of the cytoplasm and the position of the spindle in 

 the antheridial cell. These impressions gained considerably in 

 force when, a few weeks later, I discovered and worked out in 

 detail the method of division in the formation of the ventral 

 canal-cell in Tsuga Canadensis ; f for I found these two so-called 

 generative divisions to be at once unique and strikingly similar. 



In brief, the two divisions occur approximately at the same 

 time, are both unequal, and the spindles are the same in origin, 

 development and type. In both cases the force initiating divi- 

 sion originates below the nucleus in cytoplasm afterwards belong- 



* An abstract from an address on Fertilization in Gymnosperms delivered at the 

 Fifth International Zoological Congress, Berlin, August 15, 1901. 



f The Development of the Archegonium and Fertilization in the Hemlock Spruce. 

 Annals of Botany, 14: 583-607. D. 1900. 



