the Male und Female Flowers of Conifers. 213 
we find that they are a little larger and broader, their margins 
somewhat laciniated instead of being smooth, their colour, in- 
stead of being green, yellowish fawn or pale brown, and their 
texture, more especially at the margins, petaloid. It is often 
difficult to tell whether an organ is a petal, a sepal, a bract, or a 
leaf; but, speaking in a general way, there are two characters 
which are rarely absent from petals, and help to distinguish 
them: one of these is colour, and the other a peculiar elongated 
cell-structure which does not, indeed, essentially differ from 
other cell-structures, but which has a different aspect and is 
easily recognized. We all know the texture of a petal; and 
where that texture is present, either in whole or in part, it 
furnishes a presumption that the organ possessing it is a 
petal. In Conifers it often suggests the fact at once where, but 
for it, the petaloid nature of the part could only be determined 
in some more roundabout and difficult way. For instance, in 
Cunninghamia Sinensis, where what is called the scale (but what 
in that particular instance is the petal) is, as plainly as can be, 
a continuation of the hard leaves of the branch, and, bearing 
stomata, traces of the petaloid structure will be found in the 
lacmiated margin. So in Wellingtonia and all the Cypresses, 
the scales which form the male catkin, although merely the 
continuation of the leaves of the branch, are the petals, each 
petal being one flower, and the small rounded balls which peep 
out at their base are the anthers ; these are sessile and grow at, 
along, or on the inferior margin of the petal, as shown in Pl. X. 
figs. 2 & 3. Of course it makes no difference physiologically 
whether they are sessile or grow upon longer or shorter fila- 
ments or foot-stalks. At first they grow facing inwards towards 
the axis; but by-and-by, probably from there not being sufficient 
space there, they are turned backwards, as shown in fig. 4. I 
should here observe that figs. 2 and 4 are respectively of Wel- 
lingtonia and Sequoia sempervirens (the flowers of which corre- 
spond in all respects), the former being what I observed first in 
Wellingtonia, and the latter what I saw at a somewhat later date 
in S. sempervirens. Ihave no doubt that if I had had the oppor- 
tunity of observing Wellingtonia at the same later date, I should 
have found the anthers reverted as in the other, or that if I had 
thought of examining S. sempervirens at the earlier date, I 
should then have found the anthers facing as in fig. 2 
In firs and pines exactly the same arrangement subsists: the 
male flower assumes the form of fig.5 when young, and of fig. 6 
when full-grown and the anthers have burst and the pollen been 
shed. Fig. 7 shows the underside before it has burst; and the 
longitudinal line on each anther shows where it bursts, having 
previously thinned off, perhaps through having been rubbed by 
