624 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
compare the macrospore formation of this Pacific coast species 
with that of S. stellata. I find that the formation of four in¬ 
dividual macrospores with the subsequent disappearance of the 
division walls occurs here identically as in S. stellata. This 
is, of course, to he expected since S. sessifolia is the Pacific 
form comparable to S. stellata. 
Prof. H. I). Densmore has very kindly allowed me to exam¬ 
ine his material of Smilacina amplexicaulis which is the Pa¬ 
cific Coast species very closely resembling S. racemosa. This 
species I have found to form four unequal macrospores in the 
same manner as S. racemosa. I have been unable to follow 
the development of the embryo-sac. 
Preliminary studies on the early stages of the development 
of the embryo-sac of Maianthemum canadense show that here 
also separate macrospores are formed which later become merged 
into one cell. The four macrospores in this case seemed to be 
potentially equal as is the case in S. stellata. 
It will thus be seen that Smilacina racemosa though differing 
definitely in the development of its embryo-sac from S. stellata 
as previously described by me (50) still resembles it in a strik¬ 
ing manner. In S. racemosa as in S. stellata four distinct 
macrospores are formed which are separated from one another 
by distinct double membranes. These cells in S. racemosa are 
nevertheless not potentially equal for the two inner degenerate 
while the eight nucleate embryo-sac is formed from, the prod¬ 
ucts of the division of the two outer cells which first come to oc¬ 
cupy the same cell by the disappearance of the plasma mem¬ 
branes between them. The absence of cell walls between the 
plasma membranes in no way detracts from the individuality 
of the four cells formed from the embryo-sac mother cell. If 
a cell wall were necessary to the individuality of a cell as Ernst 
(22a) intimates, separate individual cells would be extremely 
rare in the animal kingdom. 
These results thus give additional evidence to support the 
view that the first, four nuclei in the embryo-sac of the lilies and 
in other embryo-sacs which are formed directly from the em¬ 
bryo-sac mother cell, are morphologically macrospores. It is 
