Abstract
WHILE in entire agreement with Prof. Gates's view1 that a convention should be agreed upon to distinguish between the basic and the haploid chromosome number, I am not convinced that the introduction of a new symbol is necessary. The use of x to indicate the basic number, leaving n for the haploid number, has been the standard practice in this laboratory for the last three years2. In spite of Prof. Gates's fears, no confusion seems to arise from its use. I may also point out that a Greek letter has the grave practical disadvantage of being troublesome to print and impossible to type on an ordinary machine.
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References
NATURE, 134, 1011, Dec. 29, 1934.
See Darlington, “Recent Advances in Cytology”, p. 61 (1932); Sansome and Philp, “Recent Advances in Plant Genetics”, p. 165 (1932); Crane and Lawrence, “The Genetics of Garden Plants”, p. 28 (1934).
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SCHAFER, B. Symbols for Chromosome Numbers. Nature 135, 109 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135109b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135109b0
