1918] NOTHN AGEL—FERTILIZATION 153 
to the writer that the present knowledge of certain phases of fertili- 
zation in angiosperms is very scanty, especially as to the fate of 
the maternal and paternal chromatin. 
ERNST (3) reports for Trillium grandiflorum, and a similar 
conclusion is reached by various authors for certain other plants, 
that there is a fusion of the polar nuclei previous to the entrance 
of the pollen tube; but in not a single case in either Trillium or 
Lilium has such a condition been found to exist, the polar nuclei 
always being distinctly separate, although usually in contact (figs. 
16-19). Only a few cases of triple fusion were observed in Trillium 
grandiflorum, although all that were found appeared as illustrated 
in fig. 16. 
BLACKMAN and WELSFORD (1), GUIGNARD (7-9), MorTTIER (14), 
and SAx (16) have noted that the male nucleus can be distinguished 
from the egg and from the polar nuclei both by its shape and the 
condition of the chromatin, since this substance is coarser in the 
male nucleus, and at times assumes almost a spirem condition 
previous to fusion. The sperms have been found not always 
to retain their $ or curved form, for in Trillium the male nucleus 
could not be distinguished from the polar nuclei, either by its size 
or countour (fig. 16). 
The three nuclei (superior and inferior polar nuclei and male 
nucleus) of Lilium Martagon become very much twisted about 
each other very soon after coming in contact (fig. 18), and even 
previous to this the polar nuclei may have lost their globular 
form (fig. 17), although the writer failed to find any mention of this 
in previous accounts. The fibers appear early about the nuclear 
complex of Lilium and gradually merge into the cytoplasm, as 
FERGUSON (4, 5) has reported for the fertilized egg of Pinus. 
The chromatin is in fine strands and not in a network, as GUIGNARD 
and Mortter have stated. The number of nucleoli in each nucleus 
may vary from one to several, and in some specimens there are none. 
As SAx (16) has said for Fritillaria, at the time of contact the 
chromatin is threadlike, with large irregular pieces of chromatin 
scattered throughout. 
In many instances the separating nuclear membranes are still 
to be seen when the chromatin has been transformed into a 
