Mr. SarisBURY's Characters of several Genera of Conifere. 309 
the very first expansion of the bud: accordingly I climbed to 
tlie top of a Cembra Pine every morning for near a fortnight. 
In the mean while I remarked female flowers. upon an old 
Cypress; and the moment I examined them, I then first suspected 
what proved to be the truth; namely, that each of the seeds 
in Pinus was impregnated separately, and that what I had 
hitherto supposed to be a cicatrix of their insertion in the recep- 
tacle, was in fact the remains of the true stigma. About a week 
afterwards I was highly gratified with the most clear and full 
view of this process in the Cembra Pine. The little squame of 
the future fruit with their dorsal bractez are at that period all 
quite separate. from each other, and horizontally arched, as if to 
protect the long crimson stigmata which project out in the vacant 
interstices: but as soon as ever impregnation takes place, the 
bracteæ and squamæ change their direction, and become closel y 
imbricated, immediately assuming the appearance of a Stro- 
bilus. In the Spruce Fir this circumstance takes place so rapidly 
that the lower squame become quite erect, while the upper ones 
are still arched. The next species I examined was the Scotch Fir, 
then the Balm of Gilead Fir, Silver Fir, Pinaster and We eymouth 
Pine, in all. which the structure of the stigma . differs very little : 
f the Larch, on the contrary, I found the following year | had 
no o resemblance in figure to the others ; it comes much nearer 
the stigma of Cupressus, and consists entirely of. a thick pubes- 
cence at. first convex, but finally soprávey and not. unlike a bird’ s 
nest in miniature. End 3 . 
k believe the stigma in- this genus cite never im been de- 
d: some vestiges of it, however, have been faithfully repre- 
sented by Mr. Ferdinand Bauer in his. dissections of the Spruce 
Fir and Virginian Pine; also by Gleichen i in those of. the Scotch 
Fir. _ The last author, nevertheless, supposes fecundation t to take 
~~" place 
