748 DIOECIA MONANDRITA, Cycas. 
plant. Femaxe. The spadices are numerous, and with ge- 
nerally three pistils on each side, beyond these they rise 
in a curve, and immediately expand into an ovate-triangu- 
lar shape, with long, subulate points, and the whole margins 
deeply and acutely dentate ; every part, except the pistil, is 
clothed with a thick coat of ferruginous down, which is easi- 
ly rubbed off. In C, circinalis these form a large globular 
crown in the centre of the last year’s foliage, and are surround- 
ed with numerous, barren, cuspidate scales, or bractes, Germs 
solitary, round, partly immersed in the edge of the spadix, 
one-celled, ovula solitary, amply attached to the bottom of 
the cell. Style short, straight. Stigma simple, perforated. 
Drupes nearly round, a little compressed, smooth, about the 
size of a pigeon’s egg, tipped with the permanent stigma, when 
ripe of a dull orange colour. Pulp somewhat mealy, sweet, 
_ yellow, but the smell is uncommonly disagreeable. Nut so- 
litary, conform to the drupes, ligneous, a little pointed under 
the stigma, with a small elevation running from thence to the 
base on each side, which marks the place where it bursts, when 
the seeds begins to vegetate, consequently it is two-valyed. 
Seed single, of the size and shape of the cavity of the nut which 
it completely fills. Integuments three, the exterior one deep 
brown, thick, and firm, adhering to the inside of the shell, — 
particularly at the bottom, the middle one thin, of a light 
brown, membranaceous, and the inner one a very thin white 
membrane, Perisperm conform to the seed, of a pale yel- 
2 lowish white, fleshy; in its apex, under the style, is a trans- 
rsely oval pit, the bottom thereof marked with five or six 
bows dots, corresponding with as many oblong: cavities im- 
mediately under them, which penetrate, in unimpregnated 
seeds about one-tenth their diameter, these are alike in shape 
and size, but in such as have been impregnated, one of these 
cells penetrates more than half way down, through its centre, 
and contains a wedge-shaped body, which I call the vitellus, 
suspended, or attached to the mouth of the cell, by a long, 
white, folded, umbilical cord, A vertical section of this body 
* 
