198 Phillips . — On the Development of the 
limiting line between the cortex derived from the pericentral 
cells, and the tissue emerging as paranematal filaments, may 
be detected at this stage upon the external surface. The 
carpogonial branch does not immediately atrophy, but remains 
for some time at the base of the sterile branches. I have 
failed to observe in this plant the separation of a superior cell 
from the pericentral cell, or a process of conjugation of the 
carpogonium with the pericentral cell. A later condition, 
when an additional (third) branch may be seen to have arisen 
from the pericentral cell, can be distinguished. This is 
certainly the gonimoblast-filament arising after conjugation 
with an auxiliary cell, which in this case may have been the 
pericentral cell. Schmitz also failed to find in this plant the 
separation of a distinct auxiliary cell. After the appearance of 
the gonimoblast-filament there now begins, as Schmitz has 
pointed out, a process of absorption, starting from the peri- 
central cell, which attains remarkable dimensions. First, the 
proximal cells of the sterile branches become continuous 
with the pericentral cell by the enlargement of the pits and 
the disappearance of the refractive plates which usually close 
them. This process does not, however, reach the distal cells 
at all ; and indeed the inferior branch may be seen well 
defined, though attenuated, at a late stage of spore-formation. 
In this it resembles the condition of both branches in Dasy v . 
The absorption extends from the pericentral cell backwards 
to the central, and thence to the proximal cells of the parane- 
matal filaments (Fig. 10). By the confluence of these cells 
there is formed the large, amorphous, multinucleate mass 
of protoplasm, to which the term ‘ nucleus ’ has been more 
particularly applied by earlier writers. From this mass the 
pyriform carpospores arise either directly or by the inter- 
vention of short gonimoblast-filaments. In no case do 
carpospores arise from the sterile filaments, or even from 
their proximal cells wdiich fuse with the c nucleus/ as long 
as they are distinguishable from the rest of the protoplasmic 
mass. 
