No. 557] PARTHENOGENESIS IN NICOTIAN A 285 



Merogany (Merogonie) is given a brief notice. This 

 expression was first used by Delage (1899), for the suc- 

 cessful fertilization of a denucleated fragment of an egg 

 by a spermatozoon. It was established in animals by 0. 

 and E. Hertwig (1887) and Boveri (1889) and in' the 

 plant Cystosira barbata by Winkler (1901). 



Parthenocarpy is more fully discussed, as it has much 

 in common with both parthenogenesis and apogamy, and 

 is a great source of danger in investigations made to de- 

 termine their presence or absence. Noll (1902) intro- 

 duced the term, and defined it as the capacity of many 

 plants, under exclusion of pollen, to form fruits out- 

 wardly normal, but in which seeds are absent or aborted. 

 This condition was discovered by the elder Gartner 

 (1788) who named it " frutificatio spuria" and was for 

 the first time critically investigated by the younger Gart- 

 ner (1844), who called it ''Fruehtungsvermogen." 

 "Winkler thinks that it might be possible to separate the 

 cases of stimulative parthenocarpy, in which the seedless 

 fruits are produced only after pollination with their own 

 or foreign pollen or in consequence of an insect prick or 

 some other irritation; and the cases of vegetative par- 

 thenocarpy, in which the seedless fruits are formed with- 

 out any pollination or other outer irritation. The latter 

 phenomenon is thought to occur less frequently than the 

 former. Noll in 1902 described it in the cucumber 

 (Gurke) and mentioned the then known cases, the fig and 

 the seedless medlar. Ewert 3 has found that several kinds 

 of fruit can develop without the assistance of pollen. 

 The best results were obtained when all the blossoms 

 of an individual plant were protected from fertilization, 

 as otherwise the fertilized flowers were so markedly 

 favored in their development when compared with the 

 remaining unfertilized ones, that the latter dropped while 

 immature. 



"Ewert (1909, 1911) lias noted the presence of parthenocarpy in the 

 apple, pear, grape and goosel»M-ry, ami Kirsclmer (1900) has noted the 

 same in the quince. 



