L. Rüdenberg’s research while affiliated with University of California System and other places

In this paper we demonstrate spindle rotation during meiosis in filiform microsporocytes of a dioecious marine monocotyledon. Extensive populations of Phyllospadix torreyi , a seagrass, cover intertidal and shallow subtidal rocks in southern California. Flowering plants are unevenly distributed, being found only in patches within these beds, and apparently are disproportionally few relative to plants that do not produce flowers. Reduction division in male flowers occurs in an already elongate microsporocyte (pollen mother cell), where the chromosomes at metaphase lie in a plane across the narrow axis of the filamentous cell. However, the poles and spindles then rotate through 90° during anaphase of first and second meiotic divisions so that the cells divide longitudinally to produce tetrads which develop into filamentous pollen. Nine bivalents were counted in diakinesis figures. The presence of a heteropycnotic X‐chromosome in male flowers is suggested by certain observations of prophase‐anaphase figures.

The number of nuclei in multinucleate blade cells of 12 species of red algae in the family Delesseriaceae (Rhodophyta) is primarily restricted to a range that is characteristic of the species; in some species larger or older cells in other parts of thalli contain more nuclei than cells in blades. The numbers were similar in laboratory-grown and field-collected specimens and in gametangial and tetrasporangial plants. Most blade cells of Anisocladella pacifica, Sorella spp., and Phycodrys profunda contain 3–5 nuclei. Cells throughout thalli of Phrix gregarium most frequently have one or two nuclei. Other species showed larger ranges. Cells within stipes, midribs, or basal regions of blades of Anisocladella pacifica, Branchioglossum undulatum, Nienburgia andersoniana, Nitophyllum hollenbergii, Platysiphonia clevelandii, and two species of Cryptopleura can have 20+ nuclei, more than in distal blade cells. Chromosome numbers of n = 8–10 for Nienburgia andersoniana, n = 20–26 for Nitophyllum hollenbergii, and n = 7–8 for Phrix gregarium are reported.