12 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JANUARY 
upper part of the jacket as Eames has shown to be the case in 
Agathis (8). 
The cap is completely organized by the time the elongating 
suspensors have reached the neck of the archegonium. Owing to 
the greater elongation of the central cells of the cap than of those 
in each successive circle back of it, the cap has a much more pointed 
appearance than the proembryo at first exhibited. Fig. 35 shows 
a mature cap. It exhibits very clearly the relations of the com- 
ponent cells. This figure also brings out very clearly the fact that 
the tiered appearance of the embryo is more apparent than real, 
for the cap is really formed of all the cells of the peripheral layer 
below the suspensor. The embryonic group lies in a cup-shaped 
depression in the top. 
The embryonic group of cells consists of a hemispherical or 
globular mass of small cells. There are usually 20-24 cells in the 
hemispheres (fig. 35), but there may be as many as 30 or even more 
in the globular masses. The number contained in the proembryo 
remains unchanged from the time they are set off and walled in 
until after the development and elongation of the primary sus- 
pensors. 
After the organization of the walled proembryo and its pre- 
liminary development of the cap and an anchorage in the top of the 
archegonium, the suspensor cells begin a rapid elongation, accom- 
panied by transverse division. This pressure of elongation main- 
tains a firm contact of the cap with the cells in front of it. The 
suspensors at first thrust straight downward toward the center 
of the endosperm. This stage of development is probably accom- 
plished quite rapidly, for most preparations show either free- 
nuclear proembryos or long, coiled suspensors (fig. 37). Usually 
more than one embryo starts development, about three of which 
start near enough at the same time to make the race for position in 
the center of the endosperm (fig. 36) a spirited one. When they 
have reached the center, the competitors coil around one another 
in the struggle for supremacy. One finally emerges below (fig. 37) 
—the victor. The others ordinarily perish without further develop- 
ment, though not a few cases have been seen where a second embryo 
had reached some such degree of development as that shown in 
