504 Wager. — On Nuclear Division 
staining the nuclei in the embryo-sac of Narcissus pseudo- 
narcissus with fuchsin-iodine green, the nuclear thread in the 
resting-stage stained blue-green, and the nucleolus red. After 
the nucleolus had become dissolved in the nuclear sap, the 
nuclear threads stained violet, and remained so during the 
metaphase and partly during the anaphase, until at last they 
again stained only blue-green. This seems clearly to indicate 
that the dissolved nucleolar substance is taken up into the 
nuclear threads. Strasburger \ however, whilst regarding the 
nucleolus as a storage of reserve substance, does not think it 
probable that this reserve substance goes to nourish the chro- 
matic threads, but that it is used, in part at least, in the 
formation of the cell-wall, and accumulates for this purpose in 
the equatorial region of the dividing nucleus, where the cell- 
plate is being formed. 
Whether this be true or not, the observations of Went and 
myself, that, as the nucleus becomes dissolved the chromatic 
elements stain more intensely and of the same red colour as 
the nucleolus, seem to indicate that the chromatic elements 
owe this erythrophil reaction, though not necessarily dependent 
on nutrition, to the dissolved nucleolar substance. The observa- 
tions of Meunier 1 2 and Moll 3 , that the chief part of the chromatic 
(colourable) substance, in the nuclear fibrils of Spirogyra , 
come from the nucleolus, seem also to strengthen this view. 
It seems to me possible to modify Strasburger’s view to 
some extent, so as to bring it more into accordance with these 
observations. May we not, in fact, regard the nuclear threads 
as carriers of nucleolar substance during the process of nuclear 
division, and at the same time retain the view that the nucleolar 
substance is a reserve substance to be used up in the formation 
of such structures as the cell-wall ? 
I would suggest that the nuclear threads take up the 
1 UeberKern- und Zelltheilung im Pflanzenriche, 1888. 
2 Meunier, Le nucleole des Spirogyra. La Cellule, T. Ill, Fasc. 3, 1888. 
3 Moll, Observations on Karyokinesis in Spirogyra. Verhandl. der K. Akad. 
v. Wetensch. te Amsterdam, Sect. II, D. i, 1893, No. 9. See Bot. Zeit. No. 18, 
1893 and Bot. Centralblatt, 1893, Beihefte, p. 407. 
