egg cell

Each single one of these (in healthy men) is capable of fertilising a woman's egg-cell and giving rise to a new human being.

When the pollen has been placed on this surface it grows, germinates, and part of it unites with the egg-cell of the young seed.

Then chromosomes of definite size and form, and corresponding in number to those present in the fertilised egg-cell, again appear.

The latter he regarded as arising directly from the egg-cell, and never from somatic cells.

Thirdly, the reproductive cells are derived from the egg-cell just in the same way as other tissue cells are derived from it.