14 Stopes and Fujii, The nutritive relations of the surrounding tissues etc. 
artifact or as abnormal pkenomena. In the course of onr work 
we have never obseryed any such phenomena in material fixed in 
alcohol nor in that fixed in Flemming’s solution. 
Structure of the wall of the central cell (later 
egg cell and ventral canal cell) in Cycads, 
Ginkgo and Pinus. 
As the structure of the egg cell membrane in these three 
groups is the same in all essentials, it will be more convenient to 
consider them together. 
By the time of Miquel 1 ) and "Warnung 2 ) the real nature of 
the egg-wäll was not realised, although they noted that it w r as thick 
and pitted. The writers of the next period 3 ), 4 ) figured a membrane 
closing the deep pits on the side of the jacket cells, and the 
results of our present close examination have led us to confirm this 
yiew and not that of the more recent workers, eg. Ikeno 5 ), 
Coulter and Chamberlain 6 ), Smith 7 ) and others who represent 
in their works merely broad open Communications through the yery 
thick egg membrane. Goro schankin’s description is remarkably 
detailed and accurate. He noted that closing the deep pits of the 
thick wall of the egg is a fine membrane which is itself somewhat 
irregularly thickened and perforated in a way comparable to a sieye 
plate. He missed the final pit closing membrane howeyer, and took 
the filling plasma of the smaller pits to be actual open Communi¬ 
cations of cytoplasm between the egg cell and jacket celis, so that 
his “sieyes” are comparable to some of Kienitz-Gerloff's 8 ) 
thicker plasmodesmen in other plants wdiich were pointed out by 
Meyer 9 ) not to be open Communications but merely the pit filling 
plasma on either side of a fine lamella. 
1 ) Miquel, F. A. W., „Nouv. mat. p. servir ä 1. conn. d. Cycadees“. 
(Archiv. Neerland. III. 1868. p. 193—254. see p. 209 and pl. XI. fig. 6.) 
2 ) Warming, M. E., „Recherch. et remarques s. 1. Cycadees“. (Overs, o. d. 
Kon. Dan. Yid. Selsk. 1877. french resume p. 16—27.) „Contrib. ä l'hist. nat. 
d. Cycadees“. (Overs, o. d. K. D. Vid. Selsk. 1879. resume 9—12. pl. YI. 
fig. 6 and 7.) 
3 ) Goroschankin, J., „Zur Kennt, d. Corpusc. b. d. Gymnospermen“. 
(Bot. Zeit. 1883. p. 825—831.) 
4 ) Treub, M., „Recherch. s. 1. Cycadees“. (Ann. d. Jard. d. Buitenz. 
Vol. IY. 1884. pl. II. fig. 7—8.) 
5 ) Ikeno, S., „Unters, ü. d. Entwick. . . . b. Cycas revoluta “. (Jahrb. f. 
wiss. Bot. XXXII. 1898. p. 557—597. see Pl. YHI.) 
ö ) Coulter, J. M., and Ckamberlain, C. J., „Morph, of Spermato- 
phytes. Pl. I. Gymnosperms“. New York 1901. p. 22. 
~‘) Smith, I. S., „Nutrition of the egg in Zamia “. (Bot. Gaz. Yol. 37. 
1904. p. 346—352.) 
8 ) Kienitz-Gerloff, F., „Die Protoplasmaverbindungen zw. benach¬ 
barten Gewebselementen in d. Pflanze“. (Bot. Zeit. Jahrg. 49. 1891. parts 1—6 
begin. p. 1.) 
9 ) Meyer, A., „Das Irrthümliche d. Angaben ü. d. York, dicker Plasma¬ 
verbindungen zw. d. Parenchymzellen einiger Filicinen u. Angiospermen". 
(Bericht, d. D. Bot. Ges. XIY. 1896. p. 154-A58.) 
