490 



EDWARD A. BURT ON A 



cellatus. Such crystals occur in the cortical portions of Clathrus cohimnatus Bosc, 

 specimens of which, collected in Florida, I have been enabled to examine through the 

 kindness of Professor Farlow. The Anthurus shows no crystals. 



The Youngest Egg Found. 



The youngest egg of the Anthurus material, after lying in alcohol, was elliptical in 

 median longitudinal section, being about 6 mm. long by 3 mm. wide. After staining with 

 carmine and imbedding in paraffin, one half was cut into longitudinal sections and the 

 other into transverse sections. 



In this stage of the egg the two tissues of the mycelial strand can still be made 

 out, but they are undergoing such differentiations as already to show recognizable early 

 conditions of most parts of the mature plant. The stipe is here a slender body 

 extending from the mycelial strand to the central part of the egg (Fig. 14). This central 

 portion consists of the gleba g and fundament of the arms a'. Surrounding these 

 structures is a broad layer M' somewhat horseshoe-shaped in the section and constituting 

 the principal mass of the egg. This becomes the gelatinous layer of the peridium. 



The structure of this egg in detail is as follows: — 



The medullary tissue of the mycelial strand is prolonged up through the stipe in 

 a bundle of slender longitudinally running hyphae, marked M. This bundle is, for the 

 most part, separated from the fundament of the wall a by a slight space, but at some 

 points single hyphae and small bundles run obliquely upward across the space and up 

 along the wall (Fig. 15). Near the lower end of the stipe medullary hyphae pass into 

 the wall. 



Toward the central part of the egg the hyphae of the bundle M spread out in a 

 sheaf-like manner and form an early stage of the gleba and its supporting structure. 

 At n, Figs. 14 and 16, the medullary hyphae from the gleba may be seen running out 

 directly into the broad layer M', which has been mentioned as becoming the gelatinous 

 layer of the peridium. 



The layer M' is already somewhat set off from the tissue of the gleba by very 

 fine hyphae which stain more deeply with the carmine than does the surrounding tissue, 

 and which lie in a very thin and open layer covering the future gleba and arms, 

 and pass perpendicularly through the masses of hyphae n connecting the gelatinous 

 layer M' with the gleba tissue. This thin layer of rather scattered hyphae is the 

 beginning of the inner wall of the peridium (i, Figs. 15-16). Under higher 

 magnification (Fig. 17), this layer may be seen to receive some of its hyphae from 

 the gleba tissue, where they seem to have a subhymenial position. 



Of the tissues already considered, the bundle forming the axis of the stipe, the 



