2 ON GYMNOSPERMATOUS FRUITS 
the Order, With a single exception they are pinnated, hard, and 
woody, and the leaflets have fine simple parallel veins. The genus 
Stangeria has parallel forked veins like those of a Lomaria, and we 
fear that this anomalous structure has induced palaeontologists to place 
among the Qycadece some fossils which would more correctly be re- 
ferred to Ferns. The cones of Cycadece are less frequent fossils than 
either the leaves or the stems. 
Leaves of Conferee are rare, and when alone are unsatisfactory evi- 
dence, as their forms and arrangement on the stem are similar in 
many Conifer a to what are found in other and very different Orders of 
plants. The fruits and wood are mor6 frequent, and are also more 
satisfactory indications of the organisms to which they belong. Co- 
niferous wood exhibits a peculiar structure which cannot be mistaken, 
and which is found in no other set of plants. This structure is the 
absence of any dotted ducts in the concentric layers of wood, and the 
presence of disks in the lateral walls of the woody fibre. The disk- 
bearing tissue alone is not sufficient to determine a fragment of wood 
to be coniferous, as this structure is found also in the wood of several 
Mannoliacerp. but the two fihnrnp.tprs tno-pflipr qta fmi-n/1 in -nn Innnm 
Conift 
allies. The fruits, again, are peculiar to this Order, for while cones 
are found in some Proteacete, the internal structure is very different, 
the seeds being contained in true seed-vessels, and rising from the 
axis in the axils of the scales or bracts • the pseudo-cones produced 
in diseased branches in some other plants can easily be distinguished, 
as they never contain seeds. True coniferous cones have been referred 
to Cjjcadea, and Cycadean cones to Cpnifera, and this is not to be 
wondered at, as in Orders so nearly allied, and in both of which the 
female flower is evidently constructed on the same plan, difficulty in 
discrimination might be expected. There are, however, characters by 
which they can be separated, and an exposition of th*>se will enable 
the reader to appreciate the reasons why, in the sequel, I refer particu- 
lar cones to the one Order or the other. 
The Cycadean fruit is of more simple structure than that of Conifers. 
In Cj/cas the female spadix is a contracted leaf bearing seed's on its 
margins. If the fruit-bearing leaf or spadix be considered the repre- 
sentative of the corresponding organs which bear the seed in the 
other Cucadete, we find that in all the other srenera of the Order, the 
