Studies in the Morphology of Torreya californica. 211 
on Taxodium was the first to describe a case in which the cyto¬ 
plasm of the male nucleus surrounds the fusion-nucleus and plays 
an important part in the formation of the embryo. In this plant 
the male cytoplasm is packed with starch. A similar case has 
recently been recorded by Lawson for Cryptomeria d Although 
J tiger does not refer to it in Taxus, two of his figures (PI. xvii., 
figs. 38 and 39) distinctly suggest that the same thing takes place in 
this genus. I have observed the contact of the male and female 
nuclei in seven archegonia of Torreya californica, and always 
without exception a layer of specially dense cytoplasm has been 
found to occur on the side of the two nuclei from which the male 
nucleus has approached. It is thickest opposite the middle of 
the male nucleus, and exactly recalls the texture of the body-cell 
protoplasm. My Figs. 18, 19 and 20 should be compared with 
Coker’s Fig. 103. I think it is safe to assume that this cytoplasm 
was brought in by the male nucleus. In Fig. 20 we have an 
advanced stage of a more usual type of contact than that shewn in 
Fig. 19. Five of the cases I have observed resemble Fig. 20, while 
in one (Fig. 21) the male nucleus had approached the female from 
one side. 
The actual entry of the male nucleus was observed on August 
31st; while the cases in which the male and female nuclei were in 
contact are distributed as follows:—one on August 31st, three 
on September 3rd, two on September 6th, and one on September 
12th. This probably has some connection with the outburst of hot 
weather which began on August 27th, and continued until the end 
of the month. I have not come across a single example in which 
the union of the male and female nuclei was so complete that the 
two had become indistinguishable. 
VII. —The Development of the Proembryo. 
I have unfortunately not obtained a preparation shewing the 
first division of the fusion nucleus, but three ovules collected on 
September 12th, contain bi-nucleate proembryos. The two nuclei 
are placed close together at the base of the archegonium, and 
around and between them is a thin layer of dense protoplasm 
which may represent in part, at any rate, the cytoplasm of the 
male cell (Fig. 22). Fig. 23 shews the second division of the fusion 
nucleus. The small size of the spindle as compared with the 
resting nucleus which preceded it is apparently a characteristic 
1 A. A. Lawson. “ The Gametophytes, Fertilisation, and Embryo 
of Cryptomeria japonica .” Annals of Botany, Vol. XVIII., 
1904, p. 417. 
