Cytoplasmic Inheritance of Sweet Potato: with Respect to the Study of Plastids and Mitochondria and the Existence of Their DNA in Sperm Cells

The mature pollen of sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas lam. ) was bicellular. After pollination generative cell divided into a pair of sperm cells before its germination. The pair of sperm cells remained in the hydrated pollen was similar in their shape and volume with enriched cytoplasmic plastids and mitochondria. The specific fluorescence of cytoplasm DNA indicated that the sperm cells and the generative cell contained numerous organelle nucleoids. The pair of sperm cells had no significant difference in their numbers of organelle nucleoids. Two kinds of organelle nucleoids existed in the pair of sperm cells. Tile ones as big and strong fluorescent dots appeared to be the plastid nucleoids and the others as tile small and weak fluorescent dots could be the mitochondrial nucleoid. Few of the angiosperms were of biparental or paternal plastid inheritance. The result of this study has provided the cytological evidence for another genus, Ipomoea, which is of biparental or paternal plastid inheritance besides Pharbitis and Calystegia in Convolvulaceae.