234 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. | (Vor. XXXIX. 
fuse into one. The nucleoli unite and so thoroughly does the 
paternal and maternal chromatin seem to be mixed in the resting 
condition that the fertilized egg nucleus can scarcely be distin- 
guished from the unfertilized. There would seem to be then a 
fusion nucleus in the lily with the chromatin in the resting 
condition. The figures and brief accounts of other botanists 
indicate that similar conditions may be expected in other angio- 
sperms. But no one has followed the chromatin in the fusion 
nucleus through its later history, during the organization of the 
chromosomes preparatory to the first mitosis following fertiliza- 
tion. It would be very surprising if paternal and maternal 
chromatin did not remain entirely independent of each other 
as in the pine. The detailed study of fertilization in the angio- 
sperms presents a very attractive subject for investigation. 
Some very interesting conditions of fertilization have been 

Ib. 
de -— deve ee 4, sperm as a spiral band within the egg nu- 
distributed in the s "ida (after iie je Ace id tet hy 
described in the pteridophytes for Onoclea by Shaw ('98 a), 
confirmed by Mottier (:04a; :04 b) and for Adiantum and 
Aspidium by Thom ('99). In these forms the male nucleus 
after leaving in the protoplasm of the egg all of the cytoplasmic 
structures of the sperm (blepharoplasts, cilia, etc.) enters the 
egg nucleus as a more or less spiral body which stains deeply 
and is evidently chiefly or wholly chromatic in composition (Fig. 
18). Within the egg the dense structure of the sperm nucleus 
becomes looser by the separation of the chromatin granules (Fig. 
