DC Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters . 
spindles (the latter possibly also, in many cases at least, really 
quadripolar) ; furthermore, as has frequently been pointed out, 
multipolar spindles have been described so far practically only 
for spore mother-cells. To mention a few instances, Berghs 
figures a roughly tripolar spindle for Narthecium ossifmgum , 16 
Gregoire and Berghs figure several for Pellia epiphylla, 17 and 
Miyake several for Galtonia candicans / 8 and one for Trades- 
cantia virginica . 19 It would be interesting to know in how 
many cases the spindle of the first division in spore mother- 
cells starts as a quadripolar figure. It seems that good multi¬ 
polar stages are difficult to find in most plants. 20 Frequently 
cells figured for such stages show evidence of poor fixation. 
It is a common experience that the multipolar stage is difficult 
to fix well. All this merely emphasizes the necessity of cau¬ 
tion in determining whether there is in general any indication 
that the spindle for the first division in spore mother-cells 
-starts as a quadripolar figure. 
Unfortunately, the stages intervening between the disappear¬ 
ance of the nuclear membrane and the establishment of the bi¬ 
polar spindle appear to be passed over rapidly in Marsilia, so 
that they are only occasionally found in the fixed material, and 
then it seems that they are difficult to fix well; at any rate, I 
have found very few satisfactory preparations of this stage. 
Strasburger does not figure any stages between diakinesis with 
the nuclear membrane intact and the practically completed bi¬ 
polar spindle; he mentions a multipolar stage for M. quadri- 
folia, 21 but the section represented in his figure shows only two 
poles. In his Figure 86 Strasburger represents a spore mother¬ 
cell of M. Drummondii in diakinesis with two well-developed 
spindle poles. It is perhaps a question, however, whether 
these represent the definitive spindle poles. 
10 La Cellule, xxii, PL I, Fig. 23. 
17 La Cellule, xxi, PI. II, Figs. 1 and 2. 
is JaJir. f. wiss. Bot., xlii, PI. III. 
is Ibid., PI. Y. 
20 Mottier figures excellent ones for Lilium and Podophyllum {Jahr. 
f. wiss. Bot., xxx, Pis. Ill and IV, and xxxi, PL II, Fig. 4), and Oster- 
lioiit for Equisetum {Jahr. f. iviss. Bot., xxx, Pi. I). 
21 L. c., p. 146; Fig. 60. 
