supporting lamella

HISTOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT OP MYRIOTHELA PHRYGIA. 535
forming the apex of the spadix, are long, narrow, and columnar
in character; and their protoplasm is filled with numerous
small vacuoles, the contents of which become precipitated bypreserving
reagents, thus conferring a characteristically turbid
character on the entire cell. That end of the cell which abuts
on the basement membrane separating the endoderm of the
spadix from the developing generative elements is excavated
to form a vacuole. If we examine the cells which form the
villi we find that they have fundamentally the same structure,
except that the basal vacuole is now so much elongated that
we may almost speak of that portion of the cell as being
canalised (fig. 23). In other words, the whole spadix is a
specialised structure for the absorption of nutriment from the
somatic fluid of the blastostyle, which nutriment is doubtless
largely derived from the stored material of the vacuolate cells,
through the help of the somatic fluid.
The absorbed nutriment, probably after it has undergone
important changes at the hands of the cells of the spadix, is
discharged into the vacuoles at their base which abut on the
supporting lamella, whence it passes to supply the remarkably
abundant fluid present in the entocodon of the female gonophore.
These different points—(1) the general distribution of the
nutritive spheres, (2) the method of the discharge of those
bodies, and (3) the fact that the gonophore possesses an organ,
the spadixj the histological characters of which lead us to
suppose that it is designed to absorb nutriment from the
somatic fluid (which, especially in the autumn, when Myriothela
appears to exist largely at the expense of its stored
material, and probably throughout the year, must be largely
recruited from the reserve material of the vacuolate endodermcells)—although
when taken singly they are of slight value,
yet when considered together and as mutually supporting
one another they justify the statement that the metabolic
activities of the different parts of the endoderm are brought
into relation with one another through the agency of the
somatic fluid.