other two, which may be regarded as representing abortive egg-cells (in rare cases capable of fertilization), are known as synergidae.  The three cells at the opposite end are known as antipodal cells and become invested with a cell-wall.  The gametophyte or prothallial generation is thus extremely reduced, consisting of but little more than the male and female sexual cells—­the two sperm-cells in the pollen-tube and the egg-cell (with the synergidae) in the embryo-sac.

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.  Guided by the synergidae one male-cell passes into the oosphere with which it fuses, the two nuclei uniting, while the other fuses with the definitive nucleus, or, as it is also called, the endosperm nucleus.  This remarkable double fertilization as it has been called, although only recently discovered, has been proved to take place in widely-separated families, and both in Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, and there is every probability that, perhaps with variations, it is the normal process in Angiosperms.  After impregnation the fertilized oosphere immediately surrounds itself with a cell-wall and becomes the oospore which by a process of growth forms the embryo of the new plant.  The endosperm-nucleus divides rapidly to produce a cellular tissue which fills up the interior of the rapidly-growing embryo-sac, and forms a tissue, known as endosperm, in which is stored a supply of nourishment for the use later on of the embryo.  It has long been known that after fertilization of the egg has taken place, the formation of endosperm begins from the endosperm nucleus, and this had come to be regarded as the recommencement of the development of a prothallium after a pause following the reinvigorating union of the polar nuclei.  This view is still maintained by those who differentiate two acts of fertilization within the embryo-sac, and regard that of the egg by the first male-cell, as the true or generative fertilization, and that of the polar nuclei by the second male gamete as a vegetative fertilization which gives a stimulus to development in correlation with the other.  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.  If this is so, and the endosperm like the embryo is normally the product of a sexual act, hybridization will give a hybrid endosperm as it does a hybrid embryo,