19 



If one examines the same bulb during its dormant period, it is easy 

 to discover in the cytoplasm of all or of some of the epidermal cells a 

 body of homogeneous and vacuolated structure, sometities gmaose, very 

 volxtminous, and which fuchsine, eosine, and aurantia stain actively. It 

 shows all the characteristic reatjtions of proteinaceous substance. Such 

 bodies present a form which is extremely variable (PI, XIV, figs. 3, 6, S) ; 

 they are of a color which varies from yellowish to brown and often present 

 a central A graniilose part which stains more intensely at the periphery when 

 treated with a solution of iodide of potass itim» They do not behave other- 

 wise than do the elaioplasts which, after a short period of functional ac^ 



tivity, degenerate and talse on later the aspect and form alluded to. In 

 fact, by the end of the flowering period the elaioplasts which one finds 

 in the external epidermis of the scales of the bulbs begin to show phenomena 

 of degeneration. Before the little spheres vi/hich constitute the body dis- 

 pose themselves somewhat disorderly they lose their form and coalesce, thus 

 contributing to the formation of a single unified mass, 



The-lteusion occurs at the points of contact and occurs contemporaneously 

 throughout the elaioplast, or gradually, beginning from fixed points. In 

 this period of its evolution it is possible to find sometimes in the plasma, 

 and more especially in the neighborhood of the mass of the elaioplast, one 

 or more spherical refractile bodies, which become black when treated with 

 osmic acid, react to Sudan III, to cyanine, and to Alkanna, and at the same 

 time show all the reactions of proteinaceous substance. Such bodies probably 

 represent the elements of the elaioplast separated from its mass, first 

 having been derived through fusion, or pjrobably formed oy neoplasia. 



