No. 460.] STUDIES ON PLANT CELL—V. 223 
tory of smut or rust. One of the best discussions of cell 
fusions in the fungi is that in Harper's paper (99a), noted 
above. 
Although most of the protoplasmic connections in higher 
plants are of the fibrillar character there are some notable illus- 
trations of broad openings between cells, even more conspicuous 
than those in the red algae. Such may be found in the pores of 
sieve-plates traversed in their early stages by strands of proto- 
plasm that later disappear, and even better illustrations are the 
unions between cells composing laticiferous vessels. But the 
most interesting conditions are those associated with the nutri- 
tion of the eggs of certain cycads. Goroschankin (83) first 
noted for the cycads pores or canals in the egg-wall of Ceratoza- 
mia and described communications between the protoplasm of 
the enveloping cells of the jacket and the egg. The subject is 
closely associated with the explanation of the proteid vacuoles in 
the eggs of gymnosperms which Arnoldi believed to be nuclei 
that had migrated from the surrounding cells. The conclusions 
of Arnoldi have not been sustained (see Sec. III, Amer. Nat., vol. 
38, pp. 591, 592, 1904) but the presence of pores in the egg-wall 
gy perms is likely to prove very general with further 
investigation. A recent paper by Miss Isabel Smith (:04) gives 
an account of haustoria-like processes from the egg of Zamia 
which pass through the pores of the egg-wall into the cells of 
the jacket, where they are in direct contact with its protoplasm. 
These pseudopodia-like processes of the egg apparently absorb 
material from the cells of the jacket as is indicated by the char- 
acter of their staining and the streaming movement towards 
them of the protoplasm in the jacket cells. The relation of the 
plasma membrane of the processes from the egg to that of the 
jacket cells is not clear but probably they are merely in contact 
and not in open communication. The ovules of cycads seem to 
offer an especially favorable subject for the study of pore forma- 
tion and the intimacy of protoplasmic connections between cells. 
It seems very clear that the cytoplasmic connections in the 
Rhodophycez, Volvox, fungi, and between the egg and jacket 
cells of cycads involve very much more substance than is gen- 
erally present in the delicate- fibrille of higher plants. Meyer 

