CASPAEY ON TIIE MORPHOLOGT OF THE ABIETIKE^. 21 



Among these errors may be mentioned tlie opinion of M. Baillon,* 

 laid before the French Academy on the 9th July, 1860. Baillon, 

 after examining the evolution of the flower of Taxus haccata L., 

 Phyllocladiis rlwmhoidalis, Eich., Torreya nucifera, Lieb., Thuja, Pinus 

 reaiiiosa, Salisburia, Ginyko, Sm., and Cupressus, arrived at the opinion 

 that the organs which E. Brown regarded as naked ovvJes are flowers 

 reduced to a pistil, formed of two carpels, and enclosing one ortho- 

 tropous ovule reduced to a nucleus ; and that these very simple 

 flowers are never inserted on a leaf or " bract" (or rather " carpel"), 

 but always on the axis, on which they are sometimes terminal and 

 sometimes lateral ; and further, that the cupulc or aril of Taxineae 

 is a dilatation of the axis, '" commonly called a disk." 



Now what are the reasons which lead M. Baillon to regard the 

 naked owle of Eobert Brown, and almost all recent botanists, as two 

 united carpels ? He states that the first developed part of the flower 

 (or what is usually called naked ovule) of all Conifers consists of two 

 small tubercles, opposite to one another, and shaped like a horse-shoe, 

 exactly resembling the carpels of Amarantacese, Chenopodiacese, &c., 

 in the first stage of evolution. From this resemblance, he regards 

 these tubercles not as the integuments of an ovule, but as carpels, 

 and states that their apices afterwards form two equal or unequal 

 styles. The nucleus of the ovule, according to him, a2)pears after 

 these carpels. This period of evolution is described in detail in Pmus 

 resinosa, and illustrated by figiu'es. As regards that part of M. 

 Baillon's opinion which relates to the more tardy appearance of that 

 which he calls the ovule, his figures do not show it to be the case ; 

 but, on the contrary, in t. l,f. 10, in which the earliest rudiments of 

 the " carpels" are sho^vn, the ovule is also represented, so that M. 

 Baillon's wordsf are contradicted by that figure. Baillon's statements 

 regarding the evolution of the flower of Conifers are confirmed by M. 

 Payer,J who seems to have examined Finns and Cupressus chiefly. 

 Payer, however, speaks in such a manner of the time of appearance 

 of the " ovule" and "pistil" that it is doubtful which of the two he 

 considers to appear first ; but whatever his opinion may be, he, at all 

 events, does not confirm M. Baillon, for he says " the flower appears 

 in Cypresses and Pines as a httle protuberance, on each side of which 

 arises a little ridge resembling exactly a very young leaf" 



The priority of origin of the outer covering (carpels of Baillon), 

 or the central body (ovule of Baillon), shoidd by no means be 

 neglected, as its determination may assist ia fixing the nature of 

 both. For if the central protuberance appear first and the external 

 envelope later, the central protuberance is an ovule, because the 

 nucleus appears before the integument ; but, on the other hand, if 



* Recueil d'observations botaniqnes, t. i. Paris, 1860. 



t 1. c. p. 7. " Ce qu'on voitapparaitre d'aborcl de la fleur femelle c'est nne paire 

 depetites feuilles carpellaires en forme de fer a cheval." 

 X In Baillon's paper, I. c. p. 17, et seq. 



