Abstract: During the development of the anthers,potassium antimonite was used to locate Ca²⁺ in fertile and sterile anthers of purple cytoplasmic male sterile rice(Oryza sativa L.ssp.indica).In the fertile anthers,there was abundant Ca²⁺ precipitates on the surface of early microspore,but not in cytoplasm;In the tapetum,there were little calcium precipitates in cytoplasm in the early stage,in the later stage,tapetum cells suffered programmed cell death and a great quantity of calcium was precipitated.In the sterile anthers,the pollen mother cell aborted at the meiosis stage and abundant calcium was precipitated in vacuolated cytoplasm.There were abundant Ca²⁺ preci-(pitates)between tapetum and pollen mother cells or between tapetum and microspores,but not in the tapetum cells.The results indicate that abnormalities in the distribution of calcium between tapetum and pollen mother cells,which is the same between tapetum and microspore,are correlate with cytoplasmic male sterility.