22J^ BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



scale, the peduncle itself being; its eloni>ated base. The cupule of 

 Taxus may be either a simple circular carpel, or may consist of more 

 than one carpel. The apparently terminal ovule of Taxus and Tor- 

 reya he would regard as axillary to one of the uppermost subtending 

 bract-scales; for he Avill not concede that the ovule can be wholly 

 destitute of a carpellary organ. Yet he might do so, in one sense ; 

 for if the carpel may develope very late and very imperfectly or very 

 little, it may sometimes not visibly appear at all, and so the phyl- 

 lome be reduced to the ovular outgrowth. 



Finally, Celakovsky notes, that if the ovule of Taxus and.Torreya 

 be axillary to an uppermost scale, it would originate not from the 

 dorsal but from the ventral face, /. e. from the upper side of the leaf; 

 which would distinguish Taxinex from all true Coniferfe^ — a view 

 which would not be destitute of important support. For both Braun 

 and Mohl have seen apparently androgynous scales in some Ahiefinepc. 

 In a monstrous Larch anient, among carpellary scales with normally 

 dorsal ovules, Braun found one with ovules on the opjiosite face; and 

 Mohl describes and figures an androgynous inflorescence of "White 

 Spruce, with pollen-sacs on the outer face, and on the other a pair of 

 knobs which from their form and position might be taken for imper- 

 fectly developed ovules. But this lattar case seems most ambiguous. 

 If it was in a male catkin, the upper part of which had become fe- 

 male by the development of carpel-scales in the axil of stamens par- 

 tially transformed into bracts (which is the case we have before us 

 in a monstrosity of Hemlock Spruce), then the quasi-androgynous 

 scale in question may have been the normal abietinous carpel-scale 

 itself, with the polleniferous bract behind it and connate with it. 



The androgynous spike of Hemlock Spruce before us is below nor- 

 mally staminate; above some anthers are slightly scarious-winged at 

 one side of the projecting tip, another has this wing developed into a 

 bract-like body on the whole of one side ; next there is a bract with 

 a single small pollen-sac on one side of its back and in its axil a 

 well-formed and biovulate carpel-scale. 



