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HETEROCYST

871

HIAWATHA

wooed by Poseidon and Apollo, vowed eternal virginity in order to free herself from their suit. She is not mentioned in Homer, and is consequently believed to be of later origin than the rest of the great Grecian deities. She was regarded as the personification of home and private life, as opposed to Hermes who represented business and outdoor life. She is sometimes spoken of as the sacred fire itself, which was kept constantly burning and used to light the hearth-fire of a newly founded colony. It was believed to presage great disaster should this sacred fire of Hestia ever become extinguished.

Het'erocyst (in plants). Among the blue-green algas (cyanophycece) certain forms, as nostoc, consist of chains of cells. Here and there in the chain occur cells which are colorless and larger than the ordinary cells, and whose work is not known. These are called heterocysts, a name which simply means other cells.

Heterogamy (h$t'er-og'd-my), a condition in plants in which the sexual cells (gametes) are unlike, that is, they have become distinguishable as male and female and are called sperms and eggs. All but the lowest plants are heterogamous. When heter-ogamy appears, not only do the gametes differ, but the organs which produce them are unlike, antheridia forming sperms and o5gonia or archegonia forming eggs. The contrasting term is homogamy or isogamy, meaning gametes similar.

Heterospory (he'ter-os'po-ry) (in plants). In the lower plants the numerous asexual

spores which each individual produces are usually alike. Among the pteridophytes, however, cer-t ain forms (some ferns and club-mosses) produce asexual spores which d i ff e r very much in size. The small ones are called mi-crospores, the large ones megaspores. These two kinds of spores are developed in different spore cases (sporangia), which are hence called microsporangia (those which produce microspores), and megasporangia (those which produce megaspores). When the microspores germinate, they produce very small gametophytes which bear only antheridia (male organs) and hence are called male gametophytes. When the megaspores germinate, they produce larger gametophytes,

which bear only archegonia (female organs) and hence are called female gametophytes. Heterospory is very important among plants, for its appearance is the first step toward the appearance of seeds. All seed-plants (speraiatophytes) are heterosporous. The pollen sacs of flowers are microsporangia, and the pollen grains are microspores. The ovules are megasporangia, and each ovule contains but one megasporangium, which has been called the embryo-sac. The peculiarity about this large solitary mega-spore is that it is never discharged by its sporangium (the ovule), but is retained and germinates within the ovule. It is this condition which results in a seed and gives the chief character to seed plants. The contrasting term is homospory or isos-pory, indicating that the asexual spores are similar. Thallophytes, bryophytes and most pteridophytes are homosporous; some pteridophytes and all spermatophytes are heterosporous. J. M. COULTER.

Hewlett (hu'let} Maurice Henry, an English barrister and, from 1896 to 1900, Keeper of the Land-Revenue Records and Enrolments, is known as perhaps the most sympathetic interpreter of mediaeval thought in all the annals of modern romance. Mr. Hewlett was born in London in 1861, and was called to the bar in 1891. In addition to a number of short stories of high merit, he is the author of The Masque of Dead Florentines, The Forest Lovers (which in 1898 attracted widespread attention), Little Novels of Italy, Richard Yea-and-Nay, The New Canterbury Tales, The Queen's Quair, The Road in Tuscany and The Stooping Lady.

Hezeki'ah ("May Jehovah strengthen him"), a king of Judah, who reigned from 728 to 697 B. C. During this time occurred the invasion of Judea by the Assyrians under Sennacherib, when 180,000 of the Assyrians died in one night. (See //. Kings xviii—xx and //. Chron. xxix—xxxii.) Heze-kiah executed many great works, among them the aqueducts of Jerusalem.

Hiawatha (hl'a-wa'iha). This well-known poem of Longfellow's was composed in 1855, in the prime of the poet's life, and may be regarded as on the whole his masterpiece. It is based on a legend current among the Iroquois tribes, which deal with a hero known to them as Hiawatha but bearing other names among other Indian peoples. Perhaps no such person existed, but the legend asserts that he sought to unite the ever-warring tribes in a bond of peace and to encourage intercommunication by forest-roads and rivers. The Iroquois themselves were attempting this task when the white men came, so that Hiawatha's splendid efforts and his failure appealed to them. An account of the myth is given in Algic Researches (1839) and The Myth of Hiawatha (1856) by Schoolcraft. Long-

HETEROSPORY

A group of three sporangia, one being a megasporangium containing megaspores, and two being microsporangia containing microspores.