On the Nature of Fertilization and Sex. 
production of gametes with their characteristic “active” and 
“passive” protoplasm. That is to say, both megaspores and 
microspores still contain the two kinds of protoplasm, although 
it is not improbable that the environmental condition may have 
already weighted the balance on one side or the other. 1 
The fact that some plants are hermaphrodite and some dioe¬ 
cious, etc., has nothing to do directly with the present problem, 
since the production of anthers or ovaries is a sex or 
somatic (Mendelian) characteristic, which may show somatic 
segregation like other somatic characters. 2 
The only interest the sex distribution possesses in the present 
connection is that the archesporial tisssue of the anthers is pre¬ 
destined normally to develop into microspores, an environment 
which favours the dominance of “active” or androplasmic proto¬ 
plasm : and vice versa for the archesporial tissue of the ovules. 
It may be noted that, if the gametes consist of pure androplasm 
or pure gynoplasm, then a normal egg-cell, if induced to develop 
without fusion into a mature individual, should be incapable of pro¬ 
ducing androplasmic gametes. If such an apogamously produced 
individual were found to give rise to androplasmic gametes, the 
presumption would be that both varieties of protoplasm were present 
in the gynoplasmic gametes, but that the “passive” variety pre¬ 
dominated—the converse holding for the androplasmic gametes. 
Phenomena such as apogamy can be fitted into the scheme 
suggested without difficulty, since the gametophyte still contains 
both “active” and “passive” varieties of protoplasm, although 
segregation of chromosomes and sex factors has taken place. 
With regard to the hypothetical segregation of the two kinds of 
protoplasm when gametes are formed, it may be worth calling 
attention to one of the theories that have been brought 
forward to account for the occurrence and behaviour of 
cancerous growths in animals. According to this view the forma- 
1 See note p. 18 regarding time of segregation in Bryophytes. 
5 The monoecious or hermaphrodite habit may be likened to the condition 
obtaining in a plant which is heterozygous for some Mendelian factor and in 
which somatic segregation occurs such that one allelomorph appears pure in 
one region of the plant and the other allelomorph in some other region. Thus 
the distribution of “rogue” and “type” characters in certain races of peas, 
so that the former characters are dominant in the upper part of the stem and 
the latter at the base, is suggestive of the somatic segregation of sexes 
occurring in the inflorescence of plants such as Typha. The dioecious habit is 
more comparable to normal Mendelian segregation, where the individual is 
either pure dominant or pure recessive. The matter is in reality less simple 
than this, however, since there is much evidence to show that in a female 
plant maleness is suppressed rather than absent. 
