104 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



River near Chicago." Dodemiheon Meadia, L., var. Frenchii, Vasey, 

 grows there at the base of overhanging cliffs. It is smaller than 

 the usual form, has fewer flowers and thin ovate-cordate leaves on 

 margined petioles, constituting a well-marked variety. — A. B. Sey- 

 mour. 



The female Flowers of Conifer*. — Professor Eichler's paper 

 on this subject, reviewed in the May number of this Journal, has 

 induced Professor Celakovsky to re-investigate this subject, mor- 

 phologically so important, and to which he had already devoted 

 much attention. In the Abhandl. d. K. Boehm. Ges. d. Wiss. he 

 has recently published his present views, in an extensive article, il- 

 lustrated by a plate. After reviewing the different theories and ex- 

 planations enunciated since Robert Brown's time, he dwells em- 

 phatically on the great importance of the study of the anamorpho- 

 ses (as he calls those monstrosities which are the result ot retro- 

 grade metamorphosis, in contra-distinction to mere pathological 

 alterations) and of the teachings they convey. He comes to the 

 conclusion that these are a much safer guide than the microscopic 

 study of the genesis of the organs, which has often misled those 

 Avho too implicitly relied on its teachings. Investigating the ana- 

 morphoses of the Norway spruce, he finds the two lateral car- 

 pellary leaves distinctly indicated and more or less separated and 

 developed. In more involved cases an anterior and then a pos- 

 terior bract make their appearance; these, Professor Eichler had 

 taken for a third and fourth lobe of his ligula. It must. be 

 stated here that normally the posterior bract is the third and 

 the anterior the fourth in order. Celakovsky comes to the con- 

 clusion that, at least in Abietineo?, Eichler's theory (that the 

 carpellary scale is a mere emergence or ligule of the bract) is 

 quite wrong, and that Mohl's view (1871)* — that the carpellary 

 scale of these plants consists of the two connate lowest leaves of 

 an axillary, otherwise undeveloped, bud connate at their upper 

 edge and producing the ovules on their back, — is amply vindi- 

 cated by all known morphological facts and is antagonistic to none 



of them. 



He further concedes that the same explanation may possibly 

 be the true one for all conifers, and that all morphologists who 

 have treated this question thus far, have, whatever their views, 

 assumed a conformity in this respect in all the tribes of conifers, 

 and a complete homology of their female organs. But he thinks 



* It appears now that A. Braun has expressed the same view as early as 

 1842 in the French Gongres scientifique at Strasburg, in the report of whose 

 proceedings it is published. He often threw out such hiDts from the rich 

 treasures of his investigations, but with characteristic modesty he gave- 

 them to science without urging them or claiming scientific property or priori 

 ty in them. 



