8o 
F. MCALLISTER 
to our knowledge of the chloroplasts of the Anthocerotes. He has 
shown that in certain tropical Anthoceros forms more than one 
chloroplast is usually found in the cells of the gametophyte and that 
in those cells showing the greatest increase in the number of the 
chloroplasts the pyrenoids are poorly defined or lacking. Referring 
to a species collected in Buitenzorg in which all of the interior cells 
of the thallus showed multiple chloroplasts, not infrequently as many 
as eight in a cell, he says: "The pyrenoid, usually so conspicuous in the 
chromatophores of the Anthocerotes, seems to be quite absent and 
in this respect, as well as the increased number of the chromatophores 
there is a close approach to the chromatophores of the other arche- 
goniates." He finds that in a Javanese form, which he calls Megaceros 
Tjibodensis, as many as twelve chloroplasts are sometimes present in 
a single cell. In most of the cells, however, two to four were to be seen 
and occasionally but one. No trace of a pyrenoid could be recognized. 
In Megaceros Salakensis the chloroplasts of the upper surface of the 
thallus are larger and have aggregations of starch grains suggesting 
pyrenoids though less definite than in Anthoceros. The interior cells 
usually have four to six choloroplasts which lack pyrenoids. The 
author intimates that small starch grains are present in these chloro- 
plasts . . nor were large starch granules observed") though he 
does not make a direct statement to that effect. 
Sapehin (i6, 17) has shown that the presence of a single chloro- 
plast in the sporogenous cells of Anthoceros is not peculiar to this 
group. He reports that the sporogenous tissues of Selaginella, Isoetes, 
and the mosses as well as the meristematic cells of certain Bryophytes 
have but a single chloroplast. 
Schmitz (19) gave the name "pyrenoid" to the kernel-like bodies 
in the algal chloroplast which have a different texture and staining 
reaction than the surrounding plastid cytoplasm. Pyrenoids are 
found in the diatoms, certain of the Rhodophyceae, the Euglenidae, 
and the green algae. 
De Bary as far back as 1858 (i) studied the pyrenoid in Spirogyra 
and determined by means of the iodin reaction that it was surrounded 
by an outer layer of starch, and by means of sugar and sulphuric acid 
claimed to show that the central part was protein. 
Schmitz (19) described the pyrenoid as a comparatively dense, 
homogeneous mass which is differentiated from the chlorophyll- 
bearing protoplasm. Its microchemical reactions led him to conclude 
