NOTES 
NOTE ON AN ABNORMAL PROTHALLUS OF PINUS MARITIMA, L. 
— A large number of Pine prothalli were collected during October and November, 
1911, with the object of making a comparative study of certain fixing agents, and 
of various methods of treating fixed material prior to embedding. Only a small part 
of this material has at present been sectioned, but in clearing it was noticed that one 
prothallus was quite different in structure to all the rest. This was embedded 
separately. 
Externally, this prothallus was of about the normal size, but instead of showing 
the usual terminal group of two or three archegonia, there were two lateral groups of 
two archegonia each. The two groups were only slightly separated, and were almost, 
but not quite, in the same longitudinal plane. 
In sectioning, great care was taken in orienting the material so as to get a median 
longitudinal section of the prothallus which should pass as nearly as possible through 
the median plane of each archegonium. For it to do so exactly was impossible, 
owing to the arrangement of the archegonia as described above, but the accompanying 
drawing was made almost entirely from one section, the details of the lower arche- 
gonia, however, being filled in from adjacent sections. 
The prothallus was fixed on Nov. 5, 1911, in the following solution: 
Picric acid, saturated solution in 50 per cent, alcohol, 100 c.c. 
Glacial acetic acid ....... 5 c.c. 
Mercuric chloride ....... 5 grammes. 
washed in 50 per cent, alcohol, and embedded through cedar-wood oil. 
The structure of the prothallus, as seen in section, is sufficiently explained by the 
drawing. 
As far as the writer is aware, no case is recorded of a prothallus of any of the 
Abietineae which bears only lateral archegonia. The nearest is that figured and 
described by Miss Ferguson in Pinus Montana uncinata , which formed archegonia 
not only at the top , but also along the sides of the prothallus, so arranged as to suggest 
a cock’s comb. 
The case here described, however, differs fundamentally from Miss Ferguson’s 
in the entire absence of apical archegonia. Its chief interest lies in the resemblance to 
certain other groups' — Araucarineae, Sequoiineae, and Callitrineae — in which lateral 
archegonia are the rule, and terminal archegonia entirely absent, except in Araucarineae, 
where they may apparently occur as well, especially in Araucaria . The resemblance 
is not a very close one, since in these tribes the archegonia may be, and often are, 
deep-seated ; but this condition is paralleled in other recorded cases in the Abietineae. 
Here, however, there is no tendency for the archegonia to become embedded, each of 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXVI. No. GUI. July, 1912.] 
