STERILE CELLS 19 
Christman, occurring side by side. All the conjugating cells 
had an upper sterile cell which he calls a “buffer” cell; but 
the passage of the nucleus only he put down, as others have 
done, as a pathological phenomenon, caused perhaps by the 
method of fixing. 
In November of the same year Dittschlag, investigating 
Puccinia Falcuriae, tried to settle the question and decide 
definitely the function of the spermatia. This Puccinia is an 
-opsis form, having spermogones and ecidia, followed later by 
teleutospores, but without uredospores. He showed that the 
cells of the spore-bed of the ecidium unite in pairs by the 
disappearance of not quite all the separating wall. If a sterile 
cell could be seen at all, it was seen equally on both (Figs. 
19, 20). 
But this does not militate against its being considered as 
a degenerate trichogyne: it is certain that the two cells which 
@ @ @@ }» 
Ci fe : at 
Oe \* 6 
a b 
Fig. 19. Puccinia Falcariae. Con- Fig. 20. P. Falcariae. Formation 
jugation of two female cells to of cidiospores (after Ditt- 
form the basa] cell of the wcidio- 
spore-chain (after Dittschlag). 
The uppermost cell on the left 
in a does not belong to the others. 
Each fertile cell has a sterile 
cell above it. In b, the first 
conjugate division is just com- 
pleted (Diagrammatic). 
schlag): u, the basal cell; b, an 
zcidiospore-mother-cell; c, the 
same in the act of conjugate 
division (the nucleoli are seen 
in the middle); d, the inter- 
ealary cell cut off. 
fuse are in most cases exactly alike, and therefore, if they 
represent potential female cells, each of them would naturally 
be provided with a trichogyne in equal degree, if at all. 
2-9 
