416 Mr. Robert Brown on the Structure of the 
view, as far as relates to Dacrydium, the longitudinal fissure 
of the outer coat in the early stage, and its state in the ripe 
fruit, in which it forms only a partial covering, may be ob- 
jected*. But these objections are, in a great measure, re- 
moved by the analogous structure already described in Bank- 
sia and Dryandra. 
The plurality of embryos sometimes occurring in Conife- 
ree, and which, in Cycadez, seems even to be the natural struc- 
ture, may also, perhaps, be supposed to form an objection to 
the present opinion, though to me it appears rather an argu- 
ment in its favour. 
Upon the whole, the objections to which the view here taken 
of the structure of these two families is still liable, seem to me, 
as far as I am aware of them, much less important than those 
that may be brought against the other opinions that have been 
advanced, and still divide botanists on this subject. 
According to the earliest of these opinions, the female flower 
of Cycadeze and Coniferee is a monospermous pistillum, having 
no proper floral envelope. 
To this structure, however, Pinus itself was long considered 
by many botanists as presenting an exception. 
Linnezus has expressed himself so obscurely in the natural 
character which he has given of this genus, that I find it dif- 
ficult to determine what his opinion of its structure really was. 
I am inclined, however, to believe it to have been much nearer 
the truth than is generally supposed ; judging of it from a com- 
parison of his essential with his artificial generic character, 
and from an observation recorded in his Prelectiones, pub- 
lished by Giseke +. 
But the first clear account that I have met with, of the real 
structure of Pinus, as far as regards the direction, or base and 
apex of the female flowers, is given, in 1767, by Trew, who 
describes them in the following manner: “ Singula semina vel 
potius germina stigmati tanquam organo feminino gaudent ,” 
and his figure of the female flower of the Larch, in which the 
stigmata project beyond the base of the scale, removes all 
doubt respecting his meaning. 
In 1789, M. de Jussieu, in the character of his genus Abies ||, 
gives a similar account of structure, though somewhat less 
clearly as well as less decidedly expressed. In the observa- 
tions that follow, he suggests, as not improbable, a very diffe- 
rent view, founded on the supposed analogy with Araucaria, 
whose structure was then misunderstood; namely, that the 
* Flinders’s Voy. loc. cit. + Prelect. in Ord. Nat. p. 589. 
¢ Nov. Act. Acad. Nat. Curios. iil, p. 453. tab. 13. fig. 23. 
|| Gen. Pl. p. 414, 
inner 
