406 EDAVAIU) ('. JEFFREY ON 



Sciiulopitvs is almost a (leiiioiistratioii of its accuracy. The liypothesis which explains the 

 oviilitei'ous scale ol' the Ab'ictuieda as a reduced and luoditied short shoot ( brachyblast) , is 

 likewise in harmony with teratological evidence, foi' in the so called proliferous cones of 

 cei'taiii Ahii'fhicdc. the o\ uliferous scale becomes more or less completely transfoi'med into 

 a leafy bud and the subtending bract into an ordinary vegetative leaf. It is a curious and 

 interesting fact, which does not seem to have been properly considered in regard to its 

 bearing on the phylogeny of the Coniferales, that cases of proliferous female cones are 

 confined, in the present state of our knowledge, to the Ahicti/tcdi^ and the Tdxadineae 

 (Penzig, PManzenteratologie, 1S94. vol. 2. p. 485-514). To tho.se who accept the bracliy- 

 lilastic theory of the nature of the ovuliferous apparatus in the (Joniferales, this state of 

 affairs must ap[)ear weighty evidence in favor of the view that the Ahietineae, and the 

 Td.vod'meae as well, are somewhat primitive orders of the group, for there would naturally 

 be the greatest tendency to reversion and the clearest anatomical evidence of the shoot 

 value of the ovuliferous scale in the orders which are nearest t(j the ancestral stock. 



In the case of the I'd.codlnede, the scales of the female cone are not superposed in 

 pairs but consist of single, generally more or less thickened ovule-bearing organs, in 

 which there is present a double system of bundles consisting of an upper and a lower 

 series oriented in opposite directions, as are those of the separate superposed scales of the 

 Abietineae. The generally accepted description of the state of affairs in the cone scales 

 of the Taxod'utede, is that there is a fusion of the ovuliferous and sterile bracts. It is 

 scarcely logical to speak of organs as being " fused " unless they were originally sepa- 

 rate. The view that they were primitively separate, superposed scales in the ancestral 

 stock' of the Taxodineae is strengthened by a consideration of the anatomical facts in 

 the case of the genus Se(|uoia ; for it is not eas}- to conceive that the series of massive 

 bundles near the upper surface of the cone scale in this genus is arising dc iioro for the 

 benefit of the reproductive organs, since the ovnlai- bundles are extremely small and 

 ((uite out of all proportion to the fibrovascular strands of the upper system from which 

 they take their origin. The more reasonable explanation seems to be that the thick, 

 single scale which bears the ovules in the case of most of the Td.i-()diiie<t(\ is made up of 

 a fusion of two separate scales which existed in a more primitive group, probably the 

 Abietmede or their parent stock. This view of the matter receives further support from 

 the peculiar manner of the occurrence of resin ducts in the woody tissues of living and 

 fossil Secpioias. 



It would be antiripating unduly tln' results to l)e I'ecordcd in subsc(iueut memoirs on 

 the Coniferales. to express more than a provisional opinion as to the position of the genus 

 Se<|Uoia but this much may he safely stated. The anatomy oi living and fos.sil species of 

 Sequoia goes to show that the genus has come from a stock possessing ligneous resin 



