In multinucleate cells the division of the nucleus is independent of the division of the cell.
In the group of the Siphoneae both these types of differentiation may exist in the single, long, branched, tube-like and multinucleate cell (coenocyte) which here forms the plant-body.
Cell Division.With the exception of a few plants among the Thallophytes, which consist of a single multinucleate cell, Caulerpa, Vaucheria, &c., the division of the nucleus is followed by the division of the cell either at once, in uninucleate cells, or after a certain number of nuclear divisions, in multinucleate cells.
In plants with multinucleate cells, such as Albugo, Peronospora and Vaucheria, it is usually a uninucleate cell differentiated by separation of the nuclei from a multinucleate cell, but in Albugo bliti it is multinucleate, and in Sphaero plea it may contain more than one nucleus.
The contents of the antheridium are not set free, but that organ penetrates the oogonium by means of a narrow outgrowth, the fertilizing tube, and a male nucleus then passes over into the single oosphere, which at first multinucleate becomes uninucleate before fertilization.