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If, on the other hand, the endosperm is the product of an act of fertilization as definite as that giving rise to the embryo itself, we have to recognize that twin-plants are produced within the embryo-sac one, the embryo, which becomes the angiospermous plant, the other, the endosperm, a short-lived, undifferentiated nurse to assist in the nutrition of the former, even as the subsidiary embryos in a pluri-embryonic Gymnosperm may facilitate the nutrition of the dominant one.
Fertilization. At the period of fertilization the embryo-sac lies in close proximity to the opening of the micropyle, into which the pollen-tube has penetrated, the separating cell-wall becomes absorbed, and the male or sperm-cells are ejected into the embryo-sac.
The development of the ovule, which represents the macrosporangium, is very similar to the process in Gymnosperms; when mature it consists of one or two coats surrounding the central nucellus, except at the apex where an opening, the micropyle, is left. The nucellus is a cellular tissue enveloping one large cell, the embryo-sac or macrospore.
It may be wholly absorbed by the progressive growth of the embryo within the embryo-sac, or it may persist as a definite and more or less conspicuous constituent of the seed.
A varying number of transverse segment-walls transform it into a pro-embryo a cellular row of which the cell nearest the micropyle becomes attached to the apex of the embryo-sac, and thus fixes the position of the developing embryo, while the terminal cell is projected into its cavity.
Isolated cases show that any of the cells within the embryo-sac may exceptionally form an embryo, e.g. the synergidae in species of Mimosa, Iris and Allium, and in the last-mentioned the antipodal cells also. In a species of Allium, embryos have been found developing in the same individual from the egg-cell, synergids, antipodal cells and cells of the nucellus.
In some cases the embryo or the embryo-sac sends out suckers into the nucellus and ovular integument.
The behaviour of the chromosomes in meiosis or reduction division both in the pollen mother-cells and in the megaspore mother-cells which give rise to the so-called embryo-sac are fully described by Gates. Here it is only necessary to refer to the abnormalities in the reduction division which are related to mutation, and the results of these abnormalities in the number of chromosomes.
The germination of the macrospore consists in the repeated division of its nucleus to form two groups of four, one group at each end of the embryo-sac. One nucleus from each group, the polar nucleus, passes to the centre of the sac, where the two fuse to form the so-called definitive nucleus. The three cells at the opposite end are known as antipodal cells and become invested with a cell-wall.
As the embryo develops it may absorb all the food material available, and store, either in its cotyledons or in its hypocotyl, what is not immediately required for growth, as reserve-food for use in germination, and by so doing it increases in size until it may fill entirely the embryo-sac; or its absorptive power at this stage may be limited to what is necessary for growth and it remains of relatively small size, occupying but a small area of the embryo-sac, which is otherwise filled with endosperm in which the reserve-food is stored.
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