Notes . 
22 7 
were remarkably like those noticed by Marshall Ward, as put out of 
the hyphae of Botrytis , and were probably, as in the latter case, the 
enzyme itself. The extrusion of the contents of the pollen- tube by 
certain definite pores has already been described by Van Tieghem. 
When pollen-grains were treated with a strong solution of chloral 
hydrate in which a little iodine had been dissolved, they were found to 
contain in many cases large quantities of starch in very minute grains. 
Other experiments, of somewhat complicated nature, showed that 
many contained, either with or without starch, various quantities of 
cane-sugar, glucose, and maltose. During germination the starch- 
grains were found to pass in a sort of streaming motion down the 
tube, and to be digested as they went. When the tubes were of some 
considerable length, iodine coloured the granules blue close to the 
pollen-grain, violet and purple further down the tube, and nearly red 
close to the tip, indicating the gradual hydrolysis of the starch and 
the coincident formation of dextrin. 
The style of the Lily was the one chiefly examined for evidence of 
the disposition of nutritive material in this organ. It was found to 
have a very definite relation to the progress of the pollen-tube. The 
style of the Lily contains a canal continuous with the cavity of the 
ovary and opening outwards at the surface of the stigma. This canal 
shows a very delicate epithelial lining, the cells being somewhat 
papillate. There are three fibro-vascular bundles running up it, 
placed symmetrically. 
The cells of the epithelium and of three or four rows of the loose 
conducting tissue immediately underlying it were found to be the 
great seat of the storage of starch. In some styles they were quite 
full, turning almost black when treated with iodine. The soft tissue 
round the bundles was also full of it, indicating a definite deposition 
in the style of starch originally formed elsewhere. The starch did not 
reach quite to the stigma, but stopped short a little below it. The 
conclusion apparently led to by a consideration of the disposition of 
the starch in the grain and in the style is that in both it serves as reserve 
nutritive material, the grain on germinating using up first its own 
reserves by intra-cellular digestion and then being fed by the starch of 
the style which is digested in large measure by the diastase excreted 
from the tip of the tube. The initial diminution of diastase, already 
mentioned, occurs while the intra-cellular digestion of the store in the 
pollen is proceeding, the subsequent increase being connected with 
