134 Murphy.—The Morphology and Cytology of the 
the same course as the preliminary degeneration in both organs before 
division. The nuclei are drawn out and distorted into curious shapes and 
no membrane can be seen (Fig. 23). The violent movements which are 
known to accompany the formation of the egg-cell would account for this. 
It is just what would happen to flabby bodies which had lost their turgor 
through death or the disappearance of their membrane. When the peri¬ 
plasm has disappeared their remains persist on the outer surface of the 
oosphere as deep-staining, violet, regular bodies, just like the nuclei which 
degenerate before division. 
As far as one can judge from the figures in nuclei so small, this is not 
a reducing division. It is unlikely that it should be one, but it will be 
necessary to examine the division of the spore nucleus to make sure. This 
does not take place until germination. 
The Receptive Papilla or Manocyst. 
After the nuclei have divided there appears a structure protruding 
from the oogonium into the antheridium in the region between the 
antheridial collar surrounding the stalk and the rim of the male organ, 
where the wall of the oogonium alone separates the two bodies (Fig. 21). 
This is the so-called receptive papilla. No details can ever be made out 
in a slide stained for nuclear details with Flemming’s triple stain, the body 
staining an intense and uniform red with safranin. For a long time it 
could not be determined how the structure originated, it being always of 
mature size when found. This has been the experience of previous workers 
also. Lately, however, in studying the telophase stage of nuclear division, 
developmental stages have been found in two cases, in both of which the 
papilla was only about one-third or less of the size it attains at maturity. 
Wager ( 42 ) has described a granular appearance in the cytoplasm of the 
oogonium immediately opposite the antheridium just before the structure 
is due to appear, and Stevens ( 35 ) has suggested that this is the sign of 
enzymic action being exerted on the wall separating the two organs. 
When the wall is sufficiently weakened the papilla results, not due to true 
growth but as a swelling, as Stevens has suggested. There is further 
evidence that this is the true explanation. Up to the time when the 
oosphere is ripe for fertilization the antheridium is more easily plasmolysed 
than the oogonium, which indicates that the turgor of the latter is the 
greater. This disparity is more marked in younger stages than at the time 
the protrusion takes place, though it is still present then; but it is only 
when a part of the wall has been weakened that it can manifest itself. 
This happens in P . erythroseptica after the nuclei have divided, and the 
result is the receptive papilla. It is generally accepted, the writer thinks, 
that Wager ( 42 ), its discoverer, was wrong in considering it homologous 
