AND SPECIES-HYBRIDS OF THE GENUS SACCHARUM 283 
many of these cells must degenerate. It is very questionable whether 
any of them will develop into fertile pollen. Probably the anthers con- 
taining such pollencells will not attain full development but shrivel, as 
is always the case with anthers of sugar-cane which contain little or no 
fertile pollen. The chance, that pollengrains, arising from these abnor- 
mal divisions, will cause fertilisation is therefore extremely slight. Still 
it is important to know, that besides normal pollenformation this quite 
abnormal kind of division occurs. Only investigation of a large quan- 
tity of material of a species allows one to state definitely that no abnor- 
mal pollenformation occurs within it. 

Hig, 71 
Fig. 71. Nuclear plate pf a dividing cell in a root-tip of Black Cheribon x 2300. 
Fig. 72. Nuclear plate of a dividing cell in a root-tip of Fidji x 2300. 
The somatic chromosomenumber of sugarcane can not be ascer- 
tained definitely, because the chromosomes in the nuclearplates of 
cells of root tips are too crowded and possess a longitudinall y 
