226 
GEORGE S. BRYAN 
In 1872 Roze (6) draws very clearly (PI. i, fig. 8) in a mature archego- 
nium of Sphagnum cymhifolium the rounded protoplasts of the ventral canal 
cell and the egg, the latter being pictured as slightly larger than the former. 
Roze calls the protoplasts " gonospheries ou globules germinatifs," and 
refers to the two nuclei as "deux nucleoles primaires." He speaks of the 
persistence of the two globules (protoplasts) which he says remain up to 
fertilization, a condition that appears to be peculiar to Sphagnum. He 
finds the same characteristics in the archegonia of Sphagnum suhsecundum 
and S. acutifolium as given above for S. cymhifolium. 
In 1887 Waldner (8), studying the development of the sporophyte of 
Sphagnum, pictures (PI. II, fig. i), according to his explanation of the 
plates, a longitudinal section of a mature archegonium of Sphagnum acuti- 
folium Ehrh. The egg is shown as distinctly egg-shaped, occupies the whole 
of the venter, and contains a large nucleus with a distinct nucleolus. A 
fertilized egg is also pictured (PL II, fig. 2), but since no adequate descrip- 
tion is given of the details one is left in doubt as to the objects figured. 
In 1897 Gayet (2) describes the egg of a mature archegonium as a large 
elliptical cell, being elongated in the direction of the axis of the archegonium. 
The nucleus is almost spherical and possesses always two nucleoli. The 
ventral canal cell is described and figured as biconvex. 
In 1915 the writer (i, pp. 48, 49) gave the following description of 
events in the venter of a maturing archegonium: "The ventral canal nucleus 
produced by this division [i.e., of the ventral cell] is peculiar, being only a 
trifle smaller than the egg [nucleus] ; and is remarkable in that it is regularly 
persistent and behaves for a time just as does the egg. Not long after the 
division into ventral canal cell and egg the canal row begins to disintegrate 
(this process having a variable beginning, though quite often acropetal), 
but not so the ventral canal cell. Its cytoplasm begins to condense about the 
nucleus (the same process occurring about the egg), and soon we have in a 
mature archegonium the appearance of two eggs separated by a wall. 
Later the cytoplasm about each of these two nuclei becomes markedly 
condensed and rounded off and may be easily observed in the living material. 
Still later the wall between the two cells breaks down and the nuclei, each 
as the center of a ball of cytoplasm, come to lie near together in the venter 
of the archegonium. . . . Double venters (fig. 42), unequal division of the 
venter, the ventral canal nucleus larger than the egg (fig. 43), ventral canal 
nucleus the same size as the egg (fig. 44) , and multiple eggs (fig. 45) are not 
of rare occurrence." 
In 1916 Mehn (5, pp. 300, 301) says: "Das Resultat [i.e., of the division 
of the ventral cell] sind zwei Zellen die gewohnlich ungefahr gleich gross 
sind. Manchmal kann die obere, die ' Bauchkanalzelle,' etwas kleiner aln 
die untere, die Eizelle, sein. Beide runden sich bald ab, und wir erhaltes 
zwei kugelformige Zellen, die morphologisch so gleichartig sind, dass meiner 
Ansicht nach kaum ein giltiger Grund besteht, sie mit verschiedenen Namen 
