Jemale Flower in Cycadee and Conifere. 419 
female flower. But in Cycadez, at least, and especially in Za- 
mia, the resemblance between the male and female spadices is 
so great, that if the female be analogous to an ovarium, the 
partial male spadix must be considered as a single anthera, 
producing on its surface either naked grains of pollen, or pol- 
len subdivided into masses, each furnished with its proper 
membrane. 
Both these views may at present, perhaps, appear equally 
paradoxical ; yet the former was entertained by Linnzeus, who 
expresses himself on the subject in the following terms, * Pul- 
vis floridus in Cycade minime pro Antheris agnoscendus est 
sed pro nudo polline, quod unusquisque qui unguam pollen 
antherarum in plantis examinavit fatebitur *.” That this opi- 
nion, so confidently held by Linnzeus, was never adopted by 
any other botanist, seems in part to have arisen from his hav- 
ing extended it.to dorsiferous Ferns. Limited to Cycadez, 
however, it does not appear to me so very improbable, as to 
deserve to be rejected without examination. It receives, at 
least, some support from the separation, in several cases, es- 
pecially in the American Zamie, of the grains into two distinct, 
and sometimes nearly marginal, masses, representing, as it 
may be supposed, the lobes of an anthera ;_and also from their 
approximation in definite numbers, generally in fours, analo- 
a to the quaternary union of the grains of pollen, not un- 
equent in the anthere of several other families of plants. 
The great size of the supposed grains of pollen, with the thick- 
ening and regular bursting of their membrane, may be said to 
be circumstances obviously connected with their production 
and persistence on the surface of an anthera, distant from the 
female flower; and with this economy, a corresponding en- 
largement of the contained particles or fovilla might also be 
expected. On examining these particles, however, I find them 
not only equal in size to the grains of pollen of many anthereze, 
but, being elliptical and marked on one side with a longitudi- 
nal furrow, they have that form which is one of the most-com- 
mon in the simple pollen of phanogamous plants. To sup- 
pose, therefore, merely on the grounds already stated, that 
these particles are analogous to the fovilla, and the containing 
organs to the grains of pollen in antherze of the usual struc- 
ture, would be entirely gratuitous. It is, at the same time, 
deserving of remark, that were this view adopted on more sa- 
tisfactory grounds, a corresponding developement might then 
be said to exist in the essential parts of the male and female 
organs. The increased developement in the ovulum would 
not consist so much in the unusual form and thickening of the 
© Mém. del’ Acad. des Scien. de Paris, 1775, p. 518. 
3G2 coat, 
