254 Linnean Society. [Nov. 1, 



spheroid and the size of a moderately large melon. In May these 

 fronds or spadices increased rapidly and vigorously. They expanded 

 and remained open three days, so that the young drupes, also covered 

 with down and nearly the size and form of horse-heans, were easily 

 discernible. They then closed again, and the whole spheroid be- 

 came as compact and solid as before. It was conjectured that this 

 temporary disclosure of the drupes, supposing it to be the habit of 

 the plant, might be a provision for their fecundation, admitting of 

 the access of the pollen. The fronds, which are crimson shaded by 

 their thin covering of yellow down, are now spread in all directions and 

 have attained their full development, except that the drupes, perhaps 

 in consequence of the cold, wet, and dull season, fall without having 

 come to perfection. It is also to be observed, that these fronds, 

 about 110 in number, are closely set and spirally arranged upon a 

 very short axis. The distance between them and the fronds of 1845 

 is about 8 inches or 20 centimetres, showing an elongation of the 

 trunk of 1 inch for each year. 



Miquel mentions only one male plant, viz. that at St. Petersburg ; 

 and in this country it cannot be ascertained that more than two 

 males have produced cones, to wit, those in the Botanic Garden at 

 Sheffield, and that belonging to Henry Ricketts, Esq., at the Grove, 

 Brislington, near Bristol. The Sheffield plant has now flowered 

 thrice. Its first cone, produced in England, is preserved in the 

 Museum at, York ; its second belongs to the Royal Botanic Society 

 in the Regent's Park ; its third apjjeared this year, and, that it might 

 be suitably displayed, the whole plant was transported to York last 

 summer and was there publicly exhibited. It is now taken back 

 to Sheffield. It appears that this male was purchased by the late 

 Earl of Derby, formerly President of the Linnean Society, about 

 A.D. 1825, together with the female already noticed, which is 

 a noble specimen, still preserved at Knowsley, and which bore fruit 

 in 1850. The Brislington specimen has been in the possession of 

 its present owner about half a century, and may be between fifty and 

 sixty years old. In 1847 it raised a cone or spike 58 c. (i. e. 23 in.) 

 long, which is agreeable to the ordinary size and form of this 

 production ; and now it has raised a second, but with a remarkable 

 anomaly in its development. This is not half the length of its 

 predecessor, and, instead of being drawn to a point, is curtailed and 

 terminates abruptly in a tuft of barren scales, resembling those, 

 which, as intimated above, always precede the rise either of a crown 

 of leaves or of a fruit-bearing cone! A check in the development 

 of the cone appears to have been sustained, preventing the further 



