Remarks on the Natural order Cycadea. 49 
ovulum, and contracting no adhesion with it. (Fig. 3,4.) This we 
believe to be the tercine. From the apex of this coat, if the ovulum 
be dissected carefully, (even in a nearly matured state,) a minute co- 
lumnar summit (fig. 3, 6) is seen projecting upwards from the nucleus 
to the perforated apex of the inner membrane (secundine) of the 
ovulum. This is undoubtedly the point through which impregna- 
tion takes place, and as we can perceive no trace of the fungous sub- 
stance* which in Richard’s figures is represented as occupying a 
considerable portion of space between the nucleus and the inner in- 
tegument, (the ovarium,) may we not infer that in this species it, in 
a state of greater development, appears under the form of the tercine 
or proper coating of the nucleus? 
In the mature seeds of C. revoluta, the micropyle i is distinctly vis- 
ible upon the projecting point of the corneous inner integument of 
the seed. This projecting apex assumes, in the young ovula, some- 
what the appearance of a dilated stigma, and the primine, or outer 
membrane surrounding it, also shows an opening, (the exostome, fig. 
2, a,) which is the perforated style of the older authors. In the 
present specimen of C. revoluta, the exostome has disappeared en- 
tirely, as the seeds increased in size, and the true foramen of the 
ovulum has closed in such a manner as only to show the micropyle 
upon the apex of the inner integument, showing however a distinct 
trace of the foramen leading down to the minute process arising from 
the nucleus. (Fig. 3, c.) 
As the seed approaches maturity, the outer integument, which is 
still covered, like the contracted leaf with which it is connected, by 
a dense woolly pubescence, becomes in its inferior part easily sepa- 
rable from the inner integument, which has now acquired a 
corneous texture; this in C. revoluta is undoubtedly distinct Sinn 
the outer soft covering, both together constituting the two genuine 
integuments of the seul That these two integuments are not easily 
separable throughout, is no proof of their not being distinct. 
It is evident, therefore, that the so-called female flowers and fruit 
in Cycadezx and Conifer, are naked ovula and seeds, not only from 
their position upon an imperfectly formed ovarium, (the convolution 
of which not having taken place, the seeds are consequently left na- 
ked upon its face or margin,) but from their similarity to other plants 
* Sir W. J. Hooker, (Bot. Mag. tab. sok :) has remarked the absence of this fun- 
gous : ance in the has ecimens of C. circinalis which he examined, and also the 
presence of the same “ membranous fining” observed by us in C, resolulé. 
Vol. XXXII.—No. 1 
