30 
May 28th, 1895. 
The President in the chair. Forty members present. Mr. G. 
“C. Walton, F.L.S., read the following paper on 
PINES AND FIR§, 
“Which was illustrated by numerous fresh and dry specimens ob- 
tained chiefly in the neighbourhood of Folkestone. 
The title of this paper must be taken to stand for all trees and 
shrubs that belong to the natural order ‘‘ Coniferz,’’ the order of 
-cone-bearers. As you have an order of pod-bearers, so you have 
one of which the fruit is called a cone, because in shape it is often 
more or less conical. While, however, a pea pod is of very simple 
structure, a cone is a typical compound or collective fruit. In this 
respect it resembles a pineapple, a compound fruit which owes its 
name to its outward resemblance to an unopened pine cone. A 
cone consists of an axis round which are arranged scales and 
bracts which bear ovules on their upper surface. A diagram, or 
better still, a specimen, will show that these ovules are not 
enclosed in vessels (as a pea is enclosed in a pod), but are without 
any covering, except bracts and scales, the former being looked 
upon by most botanists as open carpellary leaves. The ovules are 
the future seeds, which, not being enclosed in a fruit, are called 
“naked.” As the seeds of many species do not ripen the first 
year, they remain for months covered up by the scales (which 
overlap each other like tiles on a roof), and are not exposed until 
the scales separate. 
Lindley, in 1888, grouped the Conifere and Cycadee, and called 
them Gymnospermia (naked-seeded plants), and, as such, together 
with the order Gnetacez, they are stillknown. These three orders 
are of very great interest, and they are somewhat of a puzzle to 
the systematic botanist who wishes to give them all the importance 
they deserve, and no more. They are usually put adove the 
monocotyledons or endogens. But some think they should be 
put below them, and be looked upon as coming between the flower- 
ing and flowerless plants. Why this should be, is by no means 
plain to the non-botanical; but reasons, more or less satisfactory, 
can be given for many things, and for this amongst them. Geology 
teaches that gymnosperms grew on this earth of ours long, long 
before the monocotyledons, and much longer still before the true 
alicotlyedons, and partly from that fact the evolutionist argues that 
