









306 



DB. M. T. MASTERS ON THE MOKP 110 LOGY, 







certain whether these cellular outgrowths apparently proceeding 

 from the hract are rudiments of the fruit-scale or of the ovules. 

 In the ripened cone the fertilized seeds are seen to depend from 

 a transverse membranous outgrowth (fig. 18, 5, 6, 7, 8) pro- 

 jecting from the inner surface of the bract about its centre, 

 and which calls to mind the ligula above the macrosporangium 





in Iso'etes. 



Mur 



ay ('The Pines and Firs of Japan' (1863), 

 p. 120), after pointing out that in this genus the bract takes the 

 larger share in building up of the cone, and that it has a " pe- 

 duncle " (petiole rather) or foot-stalk, continues :— " The true 

 scale is to be sought inside the bract ; near the base a transverse 

 ridge will be seen just above the seeds, which, on examination, 

 will be found to be the scale adherent to, but outgrown by, the 

 bract The foot-stalk of the bract appears to belong truly 





the bract after it has passed the foot-stalk." 



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»/ 



A transverse section through the base 





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of the bract of Cunninghamia shows, going from without inwards, 

 an epidermis with a tuft of simple hairs, then a layer of hypoderm 

 encircling the ground- tissue of closely-packed ovoid cells. Five 

 resin-canals, each surrounded by sclerous or strengthening-cells, 

 traverse the ground- tissue as well as a few scattered libriform cells. 

 Beyond the centre of the bract is a layer or layers of transversely 

 elongated cells (transfusion-tissue of Mohl). Through this pass two 

 fibro-vascular bundles widely separate from each other, but witl 

 no marked endoderm surrounding them. The phloem is directed 

 towards the outer, the xylem towards the inner surface. More 

 cellular tissue follows, then hypoderm, and finally epiderm. Thus 

 the structure is like that of foliar organs in general, though dif- 

 fering in minor detail from that of the leaves of this plant, which 

 have very well marked palisade-cells. The specimens examined 

 by myself were imperfect, as they were taken from unfertilized 

 cones, showed no trace of the fruit-scale proper, and therefore 

 the outgrowths from the bracts were purely cellular, still they 

 were decidedly outgrowths from the bract and not from the axis. 

 Van Tieghem* describes and figures a double fibro-vascular 

 system in the fruit-scales, and in the uppermost part of which 

 the phloem and xylem occupy a position the reverse of that m 



* Van Tieghem, Anatomie de la fleur des Gymnospermes, p. 301, tab. lo. 

 figs* 77, 78. 









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