20 OEIOINAL AEtlCLES. 



no respect from a vigorous annual leaf-branch. It bears linear leaves, 

 of the usual form, each of which has a leaf-bud in its axil. These 

 leaf-buds are subglobose or ovate, and are covered by brown scales 

 (nieder blatter). The two lowest of these scales, which are the most 

 important as respects the true moi'phological structure of the cone- 

 scale, stand right and left, as in most plants. These are the leaves 

 commonly called the cotyledons of the branches. In these elongated 

 cones there is generally no passage from the woody (seed-bearing) 

 scales of the cone to the leaf-buds. Although I have examined more 

 than 100 such scales, I have met with but few intermediate states 

 explanatory of the true nature of the woody scales. In such inter- 

 mediate states the cone is not, as usual, shortly ovate, but oblong, 

 and attenuated at the tip, and the woody scales are a little emargiuate 

 at the apex. In the scales which ajipear to pass into the leaf-buds 

 this emargination becomes by degrees more and more deep, till at 

 last, near the summit of the cone, where they are more laxly imbri- 

 cated, the woody scales are divided, almost to the base, into two 

 obovate or o^ate lobes, which are rounded at the apex, or a little 

 mucronate, and are made inaeqiiilateral, by an indentation on the 

 outer side, below the apex. Each of these lobes bears on its inner 

 and upper side, towards the lower margin, the ovate-globose rudi- 

 ment of an abortive bud. Between the main axis and the bipartite 

 scale I could see no bud. Further up on the axis the intermediate 

 forms are further advanced. The scale is completely bipartite, and 

 the segments are smaller, oblong, subtrapezoidal, obliquely truncate 

 above, with rounded angles, and often wider upwards. As these 

 scales j)resent not e\en a trace of an ovule, they can no longer, with 

 propriety, be called carpels ; but it is most important to observe, that, 

 between their segments and the axis, a leaf-bearing bud, covered with 

 scale-like leaves, is developed. Still higher up on the axis the seg- 

 ments of the woody scale are smaller and more distant from one 

 another, occupying, by degrees, a more and more lateral position 

 with respect to the leafy bud developed between them and the axis, 

 and approach gradually more and more in size, position, and shape 

 to the two lateral scales of an ordinary leaf-bud, so as at last to pass 

 completely into it. 



It is thus clearly proved that the woody scale of the larch cone 

 consists of the first two lateral scales (squamiform leaves) of an un- 

 developed leaf-bud placed in the axil of the bract which supports the 

 woody scale, theFc two lateral scales springing in a united state from 

 the outer side of the axis and ascending obliquely. This structure of 

 the woody scale of the larch cone, and consequently of all Abietineae, 

 is so dearly and irrefutably shown by these monsters, that all other 

 opinions on the morphology of the scales of Conifers are thereby de- 

 monstrated to be erroneous. 



Seringe. EUments de botaniquc, 1841, t. xiii. 1'. 12 ; ct Decandollc, Organographie 

 veg^tale, 1828, tab. 36, f. 3. 



