16 Stopes and Fujii, The nutritive relations of the surrounding tissues etc. 
to be distributed all over the irregularly thickened membrane 
closing the pits of the first Order (cf. fig. 1 and 2 and diagram 4). 
A similar arrangement of the plasmodesmen was seen in alcohol 
material of Cycas, Zamia floridana and others, although f'or the 
latter species Smith 1 ) recently elaborated a new view regarding 
the mechanism of nutrition, claiming large open Communications 
between the egg and jacket cells. 
The thick wall of the egg appears to be composed of at least 
pectin substance, cellulose, and amyloid, for we find that with 
ruthenium red and other stains for pectin substance it stains deeply, 
as it also does with congored, chlorzinc iocline and other cellulose 
stains. while it goes bluish with simple iodine, indicating amyloid. 
For -Firnis practically all that we have stated ab out the egg 
cell wall in Ginkgo and the Cycads holds good. 
Although Ferguson 2 ) States that no pit groups as described 
by Goroschankin have been observed by her, yet Blackman 3 ) 
noted a * ; very distinctly pitted wall“ in P. sylvestris , and in our 
materials we found no difficulty in detecting the larger sieves; even 
in hand sections of young stages mounted in water and unstained 
they were quite easy to observe in tangential direction with so low 
a power as Zeiss B x 4. The surface wiew of the ‘‘sieves“ and 
pit groups is quite similar to those in Cycas or Gingko , but the 
actual thickness of the wall is much less. Pits of the 2 ud and 3 rd 
degree have been observed quite clearly, and although we have not 
yet seen the plasmodesmen we are convinced that they exist. The 
Chemical nature of the thick wall is apparently the same as in 
the Cycads and Ginkgo, containing at least pectin, cellulose, and 
amvloid. 
c/ 
The question arises as to the reason for the great thickness 
of this wall. TCe find on the whole that the larger egg cells have 
the thicker walls; for example in the cycads, where the egg cell 
reaehes a length of 3 or raore millimeters, the wall is sometimes 
0.15 mm thick, while in Ginkgo with egg cells considerably smaller 
it is less than half that thickness, and in the relatively small eggs 
of Pinus we find the wall very much thinner though it is still thick 
in comparison with those of the endosperm cells. In P. Cembra 
which has an exceptionally large f'emale prothallium the w*all is 
thicker than in the others. The thick wall is probably accounted 
for all through the Gymnosperms by the need of support and 
protection for the extremely large and delicate egg, which might 
easily be crushed by the rapidly growing endosperm. Such a 
thickness would consequently make it difficult even for soluble 
food stuffs to pass into the egg, so that pits would be necessary. 
These pits however need by no means be large open Communications. 
0 Smith. I. S.. ..Xutrition of the egg in Zamia". (Bot. Gfaz. Yol. 37. 
1904. p. 346 to 352.) 
2 ) Ferguson, 31. C., loc. eit. see p. 94. 
3 ) Blackman, Y. H., ..Cytol. feat. of fertiliz. and rel. phenom. in 
Pinus sylvestris ". (Phil. Trans. Boy. Soc. Lond. Ser. B. 1898. see p. 399—400.) 
