plasmata

Certain recent observations on the maturation of the ovum are of great interest in this connection, as illustrating the possible mechanism by which ovogenous plasma in the extrusion of the first polar body, and a number of ancestral plasmata in that of the second, are removed from the nucleus of the ovum; the former process being designed to equalize in bulk the ovogenous and germinal plasmata contained in the nucleus (Aequations-theilung), the latter to reduce the total number of ancestral plasmata present by a half (Reduktions-theilung).

1887, G. Herbert Fowler, “Professor A. Weismann’s Theory of Polar Bodies”, in Sir Norman Locker, editor, Nature, page 135

At the first ontogenesis the germ-plasma of the offspring would consist of two plasmata, those namely of the father and mother, the second obviously will have four, and so on in ever increasing complexity. These derived plasmata he calls ancestral plasmata, and, as he points out, by the time the tenth generation has been reached there will be 1,024 different ancestral plasmata in each germ-cell.

1889, Betram C. A. Windle, “On Some Recent Researches in Connection with the Maturation, Fertilisation, and Segmentation of the Ovum”, in Proceedings of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, page 249