V308 : A CYTOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF SOME SPECIES 
— which probably is the right number — the diploid nunber would be 
136. The sum of the haploid chromosomenumbers is 96, which differs 
by 40 from this diploid number, 40 being the exact haploid chromoso- 
menumber of sugarcane. If our supposition that 68 is the haploid chro- 
mosomenumber, is right, a diploid number of sugarcane chromosomes 
should have met the haploid number of chromosomes of glagah. If we 
now keep in mind, that in the crosses sugarcane has always been the 
female and glagah the male plant, one can imagine two ways in which 
this can have occurred: | 
1°. The reduction division has not taken place in the EMC of S. offi- 
cinarum, so that a diploid eggcell was formed which subsequently be- 
came fertilised by a haploid sperm-nucleus of S. spontaneum. 
2°. In the EMC of S. officinarum, reduction division, giving a hap- 
loid eggcell, did take place. This eggcell was subsequently fertilised by 
a haploid spermnucleus of S. spontaneum: during fertilisation the S. 
officinarum-chromosomes have undergone longitudinal fission, while 
those of S. spontaneum remained unsplit. This gave a zygote with 136 
chromosomes, which by normal division gave rise to an individual with 
136 chromosomes in the somatic cells and 68 chromosomepairs in the 
gonotokonts. | 
The first supposition can at once be rejected. Individuals of one 
sowing differ greatly in the color of the stem. One encounters individu- 
als with pale yellow or pale green stems, others have a pink stem, while 
others again have wine-red or dark magenta stems. The colours are as 
diverse as in a sowing of a cross of two sugarcane varieties. As S. spon- 
taneum -has always a pale green stem without any other colour, also 
after crosses between different spontaneum-types, the diversity of co- 
lor in the cross S. officinarum x S. spontaneum 3, has to be ascribed 
to segregation of factors of the sugarcane, which shows that the reduc- 
tion division must have taken place in the EMC of that cane. 
There is another reason still, why the first supposition must be dis- 
carded and this is the most important one. No indication of a non- 
occurrence of a reduction-division has ever been found in preparations 
of 5. officinarum. The division-stages of theE MC observed always point 
towards reduction. As however an inflorescence contains many thou- 
sands of flowers, the possibility remains that an occasional EMC esca- 
pes the reduction division. The 5 individuals, selected for the investi- 
gation, which proved to possess the same chromosomenumbers were 

