368 Mr. R. Brown on the Plurality and Development 



but the bill, in addition to the feature pointed out above, is of 

 a more slender and attenuated form than is observable in any 

 other. 



XLIV. — On the Plurality and Development of the Embryos in 

 the Seeds of Coniferse. By Robert Brown, Esq., F.R.S., 

 F.L.S., and Foreign Member of the Academy of Sciences in 

 the Institute of France*. 



[With a Plate.] 



The following short paper on a subject which I intend to treat 

 at greater length, contains a few facts of sufficient interest perhaps 

 to admit of its being received as a communication to the present 

 meeting. 



In my observations on the structure of the female flower in 

 Cycadece and Conifer ce, published in 1826t, I endeavoured to 

 prove that in these two families of plants the ovulum was in no 

 stage inclosed in an ovarium, but was exposed directly to the 

 action of the pollen. 



In support of this opinion, which has since been generally, 

 though I believe not universally adopted, the exact resemblance 

 between the organ until then termed ovarium in these two fami- 

 lies, and the ovulum in other phsenogamous plants, was particu- 

 larly insisted on ; and I at the same time referred, though with 

 less confidence, to their agreement in the more important changes 

 consequent to fecundation. 



I noticed also the singular fact of the constant plurality of 

 embryos in the impregnated ovula of Cycadece^ and the not un- 

 frequent occurrence of a similar structure in Coniferce. In con- 

 tinuing this investigation, in the course of the same summer in 

 which the essay referred to appeared, it seemed probable, from 

 the examination of several species of the Linnsean genus Pinus, 

 namely, Pinus Abies, Strobus and Larix, that the plurality and 

 regular arrangement of embryos were as constant in Coniferce as 

 in Cycadea ; for in all the species of Pinus here referred to, the 

 preparation for the production of several embryos was equally 

 manifest, and the points or areolae of production were in like 

 manner disposed in a single circular series at the upper extremity 

 of the amnios. 



From these observations, which I have since confirmed in the 

 same and also in other species of Pinus, an additional and im- 

 portant point of resemblance is established between Cycadece and 



* Read before the British Association at Edinburgh in August 1834, and 

 published in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for October 1813. 

 f In the Appendix to Capt. King's Voyage 



