THE BEECH FAMILY 375 
comment; while the staminate flowers of Quercus are ebrac- 
teate. The pistillate flowers of beech are two in a head 
(Fig. 257) which is enclosed in a little cup or cwpule } as it is 
called, bearing scales or spines on its outer surface. This 
cup eventually encloses completely the ripening nuts, and 
when mature splits into four partial valves to set them free. 
The cupule of chestnuts encloses three flowers, ripens into 
the spiny bur, and splits sometimes into four valves, and 
sometimes irregularly. Only one flower is in the scaly cupule 
of oaks (Quercus), and the single nut which constitutes the 
acorn is so little covered by the cupule as to make splitting 
of the cupule unnecessary. 
Evidently the projections of the beech cup, the spines of 
the chestnut-bur and scales of an acorn-saucer are homolo- 
gous, as is also the main part of the cupule of each. But where 
are the bracts? Do the four divisions of the ripened beech 
cup and chestnut-bur correspond to so many bracts which 
in the acorn-saucer remain coalesced? In that case the 
various outgrowths from the cupule would be regarded as 
mere projections like the spines on a leaf. This view is held 
by many botanists. Others maintain that the projections, 
spines, and scales are the free tips of bracts which have coal- 
esced by their bases to form the body of the cupule. On this 
view the cupule would be an involucre of many instead of 
but four bracts. A third view regards the main body of the 
cupule as stem, that is to say, as a cup-like development of 
the secondary peduncle, bearing numerous bracts. Thus 
regarded, the acorn scales, the beech-nut projections, and the 
branched spines of the chestnut-bur, are homologized with 
bracts which are entirely distinct and free from the concave 
inflorescence-stalk. This last theory seems to be the one 
most easily reconciled with the facts as they appear in other 
members of the family as well as in those we have studied.? 
1Cu’pule < L. cupula, diminutive of cwpa, cup. : 
2 This is the view adopted in our formulas. 7 does duty for the axial 
part of the ultimate inflorescences; jj ~ following shows that it becomes 
woody and cancave like a perigynous torus; while < 4 shows that it 
_ dehisces into four valves; or < that it is indehiscent; and Bj ~ that it 
bears numerous dry bracts. The other parts of the formulas should be 
readily understood from what has preceded. 
