An Improved and Rapid Embedding Method By J. CHAYEN and P. B. GAHAN

W THEN fixed plant tissues are to be sectioned, they are usually dehydrated V V by passing through graded concentrations of alcohol and are then immersed in chloroform to allow infiltration of the cells by paraffin wax. When performed most meticulously, this process may take as long as 9 days; the least time we have been able to use is about 3 days. Moreover, this procedure, especially the treatment in mixtures of chloroform and alcohol, is likely to remove lipid material from the tissues and so cause distortion. Hence to decrease the time spent in embedding and in an attempt to reduce the amount of phospholipid extracted during this process, the use of acetone as a dehydrating agent and as an infiltrating solution has been investigated. Ester wax, being more readily soluble in acetone than is paraffin wax, has yielded satisfactory results and so has been used in this study.