Notes on Recent Literature . 
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network at the periphery of the nucleus, while deeply-staining bodies 
appear in the cytoplasm and evidently represent chromidial sub¬ 
stance which has escaped from the nucleus of the jacket-cells and 
which eventually passes in the form of chromidia or chondriosomes 
into the oosphere; in the latter case the chondriosome-like bodies 
appear in the tapetum cells at the tetrad division of the microspore 
mother-cells and as the tapetum cells break down these bodies pass 
into the spaces between the microspores. In both cases the 
chromidial bodies are regarded as being derived from the nucleus 
and as serving a nutritive function. 
Thus, as in the case of animal cells, two distinct kinds of origin 
have been ascribed to plant chondriosomes—by some they are 
described as consisting of chromatin extruded from the nucleus, by 
others as cell-organs sui generis —or, to put it in another way, there 
have been described two kinds of deeply staining chondriosome-like 
bodies in the cytoplasm. Whether these bodies really belong to 
two distinct categories, or are all of nuclear origin, or all of non¬ 
nuclear origin and in that case always formed by division of pre¬ 
existing bodies of the same nature or formed de novo by differentiation 
of the cytoplasm, are questions that at present can hardly be 
answered but which must await further investigation. 
Further Work on Plant Chondriosomes up to 1910. 
Before proceeding to consider the important publications of 
Lundegard, Lewitsky and Pensa which appeared in 1910 and 
formed the main basis of subsequent work on plant chondriosomes, 
mention may be made of the work of some other writers who 
followed Meves and simply confirmed the observation that bodies 
more or less precisely resembling those described by him occurred 
in various plant cells. Von Smirnow (1907) described chondrio¬ 
somes in the cells of Hyacinthus roots and in Pisum seedlings, in 
fresh as well as in stained preparations; this writer, though 
apparently ignorant of the work of Goldschmidt, Beer and Tischler, 
since he refers only to Meves’s 1904 paper on plant chromosomes, 
considered that the bodies observed by him probably arose from the 
nucleus, near which they usually occurred, but he makes the 
guarded statement that despite the apparent identity in form and 
staining behaviour between animal and plant chondriosomes nothing 
definite can be said concerning their nature so long as micro¬ 
chemical data are lacking. Duesberg and Hoven (1910), who found 
in vegetative cells of Pisum, Phnseolus vulgaris and Allium porrum 
seedlings and Tradescantia leaves, treated according to Benda’s 
method, typical granular and filamentous chondriosomes like those 
described by Meves, stated emphatically that these bodies did not 
arise from the nucleus and could not therefore be regarded as con¬ 
sisting of chromidial substance. Nicolosi-Roncati (1910) studied 
the chondriosomes in the pollen-mother-cells of Helleborus, observing 
isolated and seriate mitochondria and more complex forms arising 
by fusion of these; he regarded the “mitochondrial apparatus” as 
having for its role the equal distribution of chromidial substance 
between the two daughter cells. Numerous other papers published 
since Meves’s discovery of plant chondriosomes need not be 
mentioned here, since they contain nothing of special interest; as 
in the case of animal chondriosomes, there is fairly general agree¬ 
ment regarding the sui generis nature of these bodies, though there 
