The Vegetative Divisions in Vicia Faba. 
BY 
HELEN C. I. FRASER, D.Sc., F.L.S. 
Head of the Department of Botany, Birkbeck College , London. 
AND 
J. SNELL, B.Sc. 
Demonstrator in Botany , Birkbeck College. 
With Plates LXII and LXIII. 
r PHE nuclear divisions in Vicia Faba have long been a common 
X object of laboratory demonstration, and preparations made early in 
1910 for this purpose proved so suggestive that a detailed study was 
undertaken, first of the somatic and later of the meiotic stages. 
The discussion of meiosis is reserved for a later paper, and we pro¬ 
pose at present to deal only with the vegetative divisions. These were 
studied chiefly in the root apex, but also in the young petals, stamens, 
and ovary, and finally in the pollen-grain. 
Plants of Carter’s ‘ Monarch ’ were grown in the spring and summer 
of 1910 partly in the greenhouse of this Department and partly in a garden 
at Penge under the care of one of us. 
The tissues were fixed in various media, of which Flemming’s strong 
fluid diluted with an equal quantity of water proved the most successful. 
Sections were cut from 4/x to 5/x in thickness, and were stained some¬ 
times with Pflemming’s triple stain or with Heidenhain’s iron haema- 
toxylin, but most frequently with the combination of Brynal, which, when 
successfully used, far surpassed either of the others for this purpose. 1 
Mitosis in the Sporophyte. 
It is convenient to begin the account of the mitoses in the Broad 
Bean at the stage when the chromosomes are reaching the poles of the 
spindle, up the outer fibres of which they travel so that they form a 
hollow truncated cone. The individual chromosomes at this stage are 
1 I am indebted to the Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society for various lenses 
and certain other apparatus used in this work. H. C. I. F. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXV. No. C. October, iqii.] 
3 K 
