608 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
The voluminous literature of this controversy has been re¬ 
viewed recently more or less fully by Strasburger (97, 98, 
99), Overton (74), Mottier (60), Gregoire (31) and many 
others, and it seems superfluous here to give a detailed review 
of the subject. Strasburger (99) calls attention to the fact 
that each new investigation on the subject of reduction has 
only intensified the controversy instead of bringing the oppos¬ 
ing views nearer to a general point of agreement. 
Yamanouchi (111) reports that in Fucus there is an end to 
end pairing, while in Yephrodium (110) he calls attention to 
a side by side pairing. He seems to be of the opinion that these 
differences are to be found throughout the plant kingdom. 
Juel, who in 1905 (46) reported the side by side pairing of 
spirem threads in the heterotypic prophases of Hieracium, later 
reports in Saxifraga (47 ) the looping of the spirem and prob¬ 
able approximation of the limbs of the loops to form the hetero¬ 
typic chromosomes. 
Gates (30) referring to Yamanouchi’s results says “It is 
very evident that the time has passed when all accounts of re¬ 
duction in plants can be brought under a single scheme.” Bot¬ 
anists have not accepted this view to any extent as yet, and in 
view of the remarkable uniformity in the phases of typical 
cell division in the higher plants and animals, such wide dif¬ 
ference in the reduction divisions, which themselves show a 
remarkable uniformity in general appearance wherever they 
occur, seems very improbable. 
Almost all recent researches on the reduction divisions have 
emphasized the fact of the universal occurrence of the synaptic 
stage. Guignard however in 1899 (35) reported that he was 
unable to find the synaptic contraction in Haias major and there¬ 
fore he concluded that synapsis was an artefact. In two other 
cases synapsis has been reported as lacking,—the case of the 
spermatogenesis in Triton, according to Moore and Embleton 
(62) and that of the ovogenesis of Planaria as reported by 
Schleip (871. 
