THE FUSION OF VENTRAL CANAL CELL AND EGG 225 
was brought in from the field for further study. In general there was little 
change to be observed in the sex organs. Very few of the antheridia had 
dehisced, and only occasionally was an archegonium to be found in which 
the cap had broken open. But in my notes there appears a fact interesting 
in the light of subsequent events. A number of cases were observed in 
which the ventral canal cell had disappeared. On this same evening a 
large amount of material was killed chiefly in the above mentioned fluid, 
using the method already described, and it is from this material that the 
facts here recorded were obtained. The alcohol-xylol method of dehydra- 
tion and embedding in paraffin was used. The material was cut 5-6 ix 
in thickness on a rotary microtome. Safranin in combination with Licht 
Griin, and Heidenhain's iron-alum haematoxylin were used as s'-ains. 
It may be of interest to record briefly the further history of the bog and 
the material. Events were closely followed. The summer of 191 3 was 
hot and very dry. The water level of the bog fell rapidly in the early 
summer and was never regained. In the spring of 19 14 this bog and the 
country for several miles about were completely burned over by fires which 
swept the region. The Sphagnum was badly damaged but not entirely 
destroyed. However, subsequent fires seem to have completed the work 
of destruction. The writer revisited the area in the early spring of 191 7 
but was able to find only a few struggling plants where before there had 
been splendid polsters. 
Historical 
The appearance of the mature archegonium of Sphagnum seems first 
to have been described by Hofmeister (3), who represents a transverse 
wall as separating the ventral canal cell and the egg. The former cell is 
shown as smaller than the latter, this being especially true in comparing 
the protoplasts and the nuclei of the cells. The rounding off of the two 
protoplasts is clearly pictured. 
A few years later Schimper (7) describes the "Keimzelle" of the fully 
developed archegonium as follows: "Diese sah ich bei Sphagnum immer 
ei- oder umgekehrt birnformig, im letzteren Falle haufig den oberen engeren 
Theil von dem unteren weiteren durch eine Querwand gesondert." In his 
Plate 9, figure 13, he shows an archegonium with the protoplasts of egg and 
ventral canal cell widely separate. No wall is pictured, though he speaks 
of it in the text. Attention is called to the fact that the nuclei can be seen 
through the cells of the venter of the living archegonium. In regard to the 
" Keimzelle" Schimper says further: " Ich fand selbst Keimzellen, welche an 
beiden Enden eine Querwand zeigten (fig. 16)." Whether he observed 
three-celled embryos, or the result of what occasionally occurs in Sphag- 
num — the subsequent division of either the egg or the ventral canal cell — 
cannot be stated with certainty. That the three-celled structure is shown 
as though dissected from the archegonium would lead one to suspect the 
former case. 
