562 BOTANICAL GAZETTE | [JUNE 
like the purple variety. Microscopic examination showed that what 
appeared to be lateral nerves were not due to bundles, but were merely 
olds. Nevertheless they afford a striking character difference between 
the two forms. 
The bushes under consideration are identified as Syringa persica 
with some doubt. The upper surface of the leaves lacks stomata, whic 
should be present in S. persica, as defined by SCHNEIDER in his Handbuch 
der Laubholzkunde. The flowers are sterile, a fact which would pre- 
sumably point to a hybrid ancestry, and the terminal bud is not 
suppressed, but generally gives rise to a panicle. The flowers are 
produced, then, from lateral and terminal buds on the wood of the pre- 
ceding year. The bushes were purchased as S. persica, which seems, on 
the whole, the most applicable name. 
The color of the wild lilacs is purple. A light-colored variety, ear as 
the one which produced this bud sport, might be judged, a priori, to be a 
Mendelian recessive. If it should be found to be so, the reversion to the 
original purple would be distinctly interesting, from the standpoint of the 
now almost discarded presence and absence hypothesis. If not a rever- 
sion, it might be either a case of what has been called somatic segregation, 
or a periclinal chimaera. These hypotheses will be tested, if possible; 
but since the evidence, if obtainable at all, must be long delayed, it is 
thought worth while to report the mere fact that such a bud sport has 
been observed.—FriepA Copp AnD H. H. Bartiett, University of 
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
METHOD FOR STAINING ANTHEROZOID OF FERN 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
Some time ago the writer had a favorable opportunity to study 
spermatogenesis in some of the common ferns, and it was found desirable 
to perfect a staining technique by means of which it was possible to stain 
the cilia and at the same time to differentiate clearly the different parts 
of the body of the antherozoid. Of the various methods employed the 
following proved most satisfactory: (1) kill antherozoids in a drop of 
water on a slide by inverting the slide over a vial containing a 1 per cent 
osmic acid solution (the drop of water should be small and when placed 
on the slide spread out so as to form a thin film); (2) dry slide in air; 
(3) stain in safranin ro minutes to 1 hour; (4) wash in water; (5) wash 
in 95 per cent alcohol until only the nucleus remains stained; if necessary, 
