5io Harper .- — Cell- Division in Sporangia and Asci. 
stage of the same division. Here also the old connecting 
fibres do not lie in the long axis of the spindle. The diasters 
here duplicate in all particulars the diaster of the first division, 
but on a smaller scale. In this and the following figures the 
tip of the ascus is bent in such fashion that the section is 
not median, and the apical cap of dense protoplasm shown in 
Fig. 38 does not appear. Fig. 41 shows three of the spindles 
of the third division lying transversely to the axis of the ascus 
and the fourth at some distance off and parallel to the ascus- 
wall. This displacement of the fourth nucleus at one end or 
the other of the series was observed several times, and indicates 
the independence of the individual nuclei of each other and 
of the general proportions of symmetry in the ascus. The ends 
of all these spindles in the equatorial plate stage are decidedly 
broad and blunt, and the central body in which they end is flat 
and disk-shaped, as in Peziza Stevensoniana and Ascobolus. It 
stains more densely than the rays or spindle fibres, but there 
is no indication that it is more than a denser mass of kino- 
plasm formed by the meeting of the spindle and ray fibres. 
Figure 42 shows five daughter nuclei of the octinucleate stage 
of development in the ascus. They are in a late (anaphase) 
stage. The chromatin is still aggregated near the central 
body. The nucleolus has not yet appeared. The vesicular 
nuclear membrane encloses a clear space into which at a later 
stage the chromatin will be distributed. The remaining three 
nuclei appear in the next section of the ascus, which is here 
split lengthwise. It is seen that the systems of rays which 
formed the polar asters in the last divisions are still present. 
No indication of a beak-like elongation is to be noted. The 
central body lies close on the membrane of the spherical 
nucleus. The nuclei in almost every case lie quite near the 
wall of the ascus, though this is not shown in the figure, since 
the figures have been somewhat displaced vertically in drawing 
in order to bring them all into one plane. The aster in general 
lies toward the plasma-membrane, the rays here quite generally 
ending in the latter. The whole effect is somewhat as if 
the nuclei were hung up on the plasma-membrane by the 
