t 
crystalline masses which I take to be composed of silex. 
32 GNETACEÆ 
The structure is exogenous, the wood has the usual mark- 
ings, and is almost destitute of vessels, it is hence compact, 
The pith is from an early period, the receptacle of glandular 
secretions, which, when solidified, separate readily from their. 
containing cells, whose form they almost necessarily have. | 
The bark is the part in which the aération of green pa- | 
renchyma takes place, it is thick and altogether green, ex- 1 
cept the gray cuticle, and contains rather numerous bundles 
| 
1 
; 
: 
of highly attenuated woody fibre; which bundles are ap- 
proximated to the cuticle. 
This last organ is papillose ; the papillz are irregular in size 
and distribution, but generally grouped in a certain order; 
these I take to be stomata, their disc is prominent greenish 
and separable in the form of subamorphous, i. e. scarcely 
The structure of the male flowers approaches in the peri- - 
anth to Gnetum, but this covering is bipartite, the lobei 
covering each other closely, that next the axis or posterior 
being outermost. The anther presents nothing peculiar. 
That of the female (to one extensively acquainted with ovula) 
is not to be mistaken. 4 
The outer coat is much like that of Cycas, and as in all 
such epericarpeal plants, is of sufficient substance to afford | 
protection, and sufficiently green to perform aération, 
The inner membrane (like all the others) is elongated, but 
in excess, into a tube twisted towards the end which is more 
or less spathulate, 
In it is a nucleus, with a depressed apex, of the usual cel- 
lular structure and appearance, and in this is developed the 
embryonary sac from above downwards, which sac is cellular, - 
and so forms another exception to my practical rule for de- 
termining the future presence or absence of albumen from 
examination of the ovulum. Occasionally, in one instance 
the presence of a toothed oblique cup was observed sur- 
rounding the axis, terminating which were two opp 
bractem, and one female flower. 
