268 
Material: Pinus Laricio Poir. Bot. Gard. Groningen. 
ponderosa Dougl. ...Kewe 
Banksiana Lamb. , , Rome. 
Pumilio Haenke. ,, » + Rome 
Pinea L. s, , Montpellier. * 
The female fructification is composed of numeral bracts, 
standing in regular parastichs. The bracts, however, are 
very small and already in the first year of the development 
of the strobilus covered and entirely enclosed by the 
ovuliferous scales. In Abies and T'suga the bracts remain 
large and project between the fertile scales. 
There has been a good deal of discussion about the 
value of this structure and several authors (51. 165. 175.) 
have given an abridgment of the different views, uttered 
on this subject. 
So I will only mention these views, without giving in 
extenso the argumentation on which they are based. 
Rob. Brown (28) looked for the ovuliferous scale as 
an independent leaf in the axil of the bract, van Tieghem 
(157) too takes it for a leaf but this was borne on a 
short axillary shoot. Schleiden (129) called it a flattened 
axis or placenta, lateron Strasburger, Baillon a.o. 
accepted this opinion though a little altered, Kubart (82) 
comes to the conclusion that it must be an aril and 
Bessey (22) thinks it is formed as a chalazal outgrowth. 
Celakovsk} (37a, 39, 42, 44) persisting in his thesis 
that the integuments are leaves gave the theory in which 
he regarded the ovuliferous scale as two fused integuments, 
accepting thus, though in an other form, its foliar origin. 
Sachs (124) an after him Eichler (58) explained it to 
be a simple outgrowth of the bract, thus being something 
like a ligular structure. Finely most botanists: À. Braun 
(24), Caspary ‘32), ‘Parlatore . (109), Oersteéa: 
Stenzel (143) Willkomm (172), Englemann (65) 
von Mohl, Velenovsk}\ (88) a.0. on account of different 
