GERMINATION OF SPORES OF CONOCEPHALUM CONICUM 459 
south exposure. Sporelings which were kept in a paper packet for thirty- 
six days after dispersal were sown on tap water in order to study the effect 
of drying on their power of further development. 
In order to observe the effect of artificial conditions on the sporelings, 
gametophytes bearing carpocephala were collected in the latter part of 
October and on November 28, 1919. A spring collection was made on 
March 17, 1920, when the plants were still frozen. All the material when 
collected showed five, six, or seven cells in the sporelings, and was, so far 
as could be determined, in about the same condition as the material which 
was collected in October and November, 1918, and on March 7, 1919. 
The plants were placed under bell jars in a north room the temperature 
of which seldom exceeds 68° F. From time to time the plants were watered 
according as they showed signs of drying. 
Germination and Development under Normal Conditions 
The spore mother cell is, as described by Farmer (3), a large, flattened, 
oval body rather the shape of a biscuit. The nucleus is large and, in the 
material studied, appeared as a homogeneous mass (PI. XXXIV, fig.' i), 
showing that the spore mother cells were evidently in that stage previous 
to tetrad formation in which Farmer found the nucleus to take the stains 
in a similar manner. 
The spores, still united in tetrads, were examined from the living 
material on September 15 and were easily discerned as three-faced pyramids 
enclosed within a thin mother cell wall. The stained preparations of this 
material were almost altogether unsatisfactory because of contraction in the 
cells (fig. 2). Farmer also reports this stage as being particularly diflicult 
to fix satisfactorily. 
As early as September 21, the spores were already freed from the mother 
cell wall although they were not yet fully rounded. Gradually they took 
on a somewhat globular form and the spore wall was differentiated into 
two layers, the outer one of which was golden brown in color and much 
dotted with tiny, bead-like projections. At the same time a large amount 
of starch was laid down in the spores and there was an increase in the size 
of the nucleus and of the spore itself (fig. 3). 
Cell division in the spores was found as early as October 5, but this 
process did not go on simultaneously in every capsule of a single head, nor, 
indeed, in every spore within a given capsule. Some capsules were found 
wherein no divisions had occurred and others in which there were one-, 
two-, and four-celled sporelings (figs. 3, 4, 5). 
According to Bolleter (i) the spore of Concephalum conicum remains 
in the one-celled stage throughout the winter. Possibly climatic conditions 
are the cause of the difference between his results and mine, since the 
material studied by him was collected near Zurich. But since he records no 
collection later than the beginning of October, and none thereafter earlier 
