the Male and Female Flowers of Conifers. 217 
view I have taken of the nature of the scale in one of the results 
announced by Baillon. No doubt we differ in some respects. 
He holds, and so do I, that the fructification of Conifers is not 
gymnospermatous, but that it possesses a true dicarpellary ovary ; 
but he holds also that it is without floral envelopes, in which, as 
already said, I do not agree. But the inference he arrived at 
which has most interest to me is, that “the cupule, of various 
consistence and form, which surrounds the ovary, and which in 
several genera has received the name of aril, is a later produc- 
tion, although anterior to fecundation, as is the case in those 
floral organs (resulting from an ulterior expansion of the axis) 
which have been termed disks.” 
This seems to mean that the cupule of the yew isa disk. I 
so hold it, and regard it as the homologue of the scale in the 
pines; only, the flower being here solitary, the seed is wholly 
surrounded by the disk, instead of, as in the pine (where it is 
not solitary), being confined to one side, its place on the other 
being supplied by the back of the next disk, on which it leans. 
If Baillon also meant to include the scale of the pines under the 
term cupule, then he has anticipated me in the view which I 
now propound, and I must content myself with the ejaculation 
“ Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.” But I think I may 
(indeed, in the interest of the hypothesis, I ought to) state that 
my view is neither borrowed nor adapted from that of Baillon: 
I arrived at it by the route I have above pointed out; and it 
was only on turning back to Baillon’s paper, in order to verify 
my statement of his other views, for the purpose of this paper, 
that I noticed the bearing of the passage above quoted. 
Thus arrived at by independent minds, and by a different 
course of reasoning, the probability of its being the true solution 
is materially strengthened. 
If, then, the bract is the petal and the wing of the seed the 
pistil, what is the scale? It cannot be the pericarp (which is 
the most tempting and natural-looking idea), because the peri- 
carp must necessarily be one of the coats of the pistil. There 
is only one thing that it can be; and that is, the disk. The 
definition of a disk is, that it is whatever intervenes between the 
stamens and the pistil. To be sure, we have no stamens here ; 
but we know very well where they should be if the flower were 
hermaphrodite, viz. springing from the base of the bract behind 
the scale ; so that by no contrivance could they come between 
the scale and the germ growing on its base. 
The scale must therefore be the disk. That organ assumes great 
variety of form, such as scales, hairs, glands, petaloid appendages ; 
but that form which seems most parallel to the present case is the 
inner lining of the hip of the rose. In fact the fruit of the Conifer 
