Notes on the Development and Structure of the 
Seed in the Alsinoideae. 
BY 
L. S. GIBBS, F.L.S. 
With Plates V and VI and four Figures in the Text. 
Introduction. 
HE Caryophyllaceae, from the point of view of embryological develop- 
-L ment, seemed to have been rather overlooked in recent years, in 
comparison with the large amount of work which has been done in this 
particular line of research for other families and individual species. 
This was not the case with the older botanists. Schleiden and Vogel (2), 
Meyen (3), Tulasne (5), and Hofmeister (6) all record interesting conclusions 
on the morphological development of the suspensor, embryo and embryo- 
sac. But most of this work, good as it is, is incidental or comparative, and 
there is no consecutive account of the embryology and development in any 
one species. 
In this order the abundance and persistence of the nucellar perisperm 
is a marked characteristic, and the formation of this tissue has been followed 
with interest by several authors. Schleiden and Vogel (2) correctly figure 
the peculiar shape of the embryo-sac and the localization of the starch 
storage tissue, describing the former as growing in horseshoe shape round 
the main mass of the nucellus (perisperm) of which it destroys only the 
peripheral layers. Hegelmaier (10) defines the limits of the permanent 
nucellar or perisperm tissue in this order, as the incidental result of working 
on the morphology of the endosperm in both the groups Silenoideae and 
Alsinoideae which constitute it. He does not suggest any possible physio- 
logical relation between these tissues, and describes endosperm formation in 
these ovules as transitory in character. 
Recently Johnson (23, 25, 26) has worked out very thoroughly the 
embryology and germination of certain Piperaceae, and one of the chief 
results of his investigations is to bring out the important role played by the 
endosperm in the development of the embryo. 
He draws some interesting conclusions from this fact on the function of 
the endosperm in all seeds containing abundant perisperm. In Peperomia 
pellucida and in Heckeria the endosperm is described as bursting out of the 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXI. No. LXXXI. January, 1507.] 
