The use of acetic-haematoxylin solution squashes of mitotic and meiotic chromosomes of bryophytes is described. The concentration of the solution is 2 g of haematoxylin (Merck) in 100 cc of 45% acetic acid. The mordant is iron acetate. Two schedules are presented: (1) meiotic chromosomes of mosses and (2) somatic chromosomes of liverworts and mosses. Hoyer's mounting medium is employed to make slides permanent. Squash methods have acquired a dominant position in karyological technique with bryophytes since described by Heitz (1925-1926). Aceto-orcein and aceto-carmine squash techniques have been mostly favored in meiotic chromosome studies. On the other hand, the Feulgen method has been widely applied for mitotic chromosomes (Lewis 1957; Vaarama 1964; Newton 1971). Smith (1978) reviewed cytological methods employed in bry007-2745/83/141-143$0.55/0 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.136 on Thu, 19 May 2016 04:30:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 142 THE BRYOLOGIST [Volume 86 ophyte investigations. As he pointed out, there is still much opportunity for improvement of cytological techniques of bryophytes. The purpose of the present paper is to report a rapid and simple squash method suitable for mitotic and meiotic chromosomes of mosses and hepatics. In our investigations a modification of the acetic-haematoxylin method described by Nidfiez (1968) has been developed. The method using the combination of aceto-haematoxylin with iron acetate according to Nidfiez (1968) was very rarely applied in cytological observations on Bryophyta. Zaj4c (1977) used it for meiotic chromosomes of five species of mosses. Also Fritsch (1981) mentioned it. In the course of our investigations this method has been tested on over 100 species of Antarctic and Polish mosses and hepatics (Kuta et al. 1982; Ochyra et al. (1982).
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Przywara et al. (1983) studied this question.