IN FLOWERING PLANTS. 135 
According to Mr. Brown, Amici's discoveries seem to 
have been complete from the first, so far as regards the 
application of the tubes to the ovula. See on the sexual 
organs, p. 5. 
From the remarks of Mr. Brown, on Cephalotus, Find. 
Voy. 11. p. 601, I should imagine, that the ovule has only one 
coat, the pendulous enclosed sac being nucleus. "The re- 
mark is certainly brief, nor is there any reason assigned why 
he states he has no doubt that the radicle points down- 
wards. No allusion is made to an opening in the coats of the 
ovule. Neither is there any explanation in his remarks on 
Composite ; Linn. Soc. Trans. xii. 136, where the subject 
is reserved for a future separate essay. 
With respect to the site of the raphe, I believe that in 
Henslovia this cord is as often remote from, as next to the 
placenta. "There is no resupination. 
[Do the powers which exist so eminently in Cycas and 
Gnetum of contracting, depend on fecundation ? 
Mr. Brown announces the nudity se the ovula of Gnetum, 
etc. in these words— 
* It would entirely remove the doubt that may exist 
respecting the points of impregnation if cases could be 
produced where the ovarium was either altogether want- 
ing, or so imperfectly formed, that the ovulum itself became 
directly exposed to the action of the pollen or its fovilla : 
its apex, as well as the orifice of its immediate covering, 
being modified and developed to adapt them to this eco- 
nomy. 
* But such, I believe, is the real explanation of the struc- 
ture of Cycadex, of Coniferze of Ephedra, and e even of Gne- 
tum, of which Thoa of Aublet is à species." 
The accompanying drawings will prove the accuracy of 
his statement, and the resemblance in every essential point 
between the inner body, and the nucleus of the ovulum in 
ordinary structures. 
