THE SEED. 29 
me is 12 in 0. Kunzeanus, O. nematospadix, C. digitatus, and C. microcarpus, while 
the largest is 24-27 in C., castaneus. The number of the series or rows is 
usually a multiple of 3, but in some fruits one of the series may at times be — 
partially missing, so that the rule does not always hold good. The number of 
orthostichies is as a rule rather constant, and the variation that occurs in each 
species is confined to narrow limits, The greatest difference in the number of 
orthostichies observed by me has been in C. fasciculatus, in some varieties of which 
I have counted 20, in others 14. As has been already said, the number varies 
from 24 to 27 in C. casíaneus. 
| The morphological nature of the fruit-scales of the Calam, as of other 
Lepidocaryew, is not thoroughly known. A. Braun has considered these scales to be 
leafy structures; they appear to me however to be rather hypertrophic or 
hyperplastic products or outgrowths of the epidermal tissue, analogous to the 
spinules, bristles, hairs and such like growths so frequent on the surface of the 
leaf-sheaths, the spathes and even the leaves of every Calamus. Martius considers 
(Hist. Nat, Palm. vol. III, p. exlix) their very regular and surprising phyllotaxis 
to be against this hypothesis. 
According to my view the scales of Lepidocaryee correspond to the  spicule 
which grow on the fruits of some Cocoineae, as on those of some species of 
Astrocaryum and Bactris. In connection with this opinion it must be called to 
mind that the scaly coating or spinosity of the fruit in Palms always occurs in 
plants which are abundantly furnished with spines in other parts of the plant, as 
if its epidermal tissue were endowed with the faculty, of producing spinous 
hyperplasia on the homologues of the leaves, as the three carpels composing the 
ovary of a Calamus morphologically are. 
My view then is that the scales of Jepidocaryee are no more than the 
homologues of the spinules, hairs or bristles that are to be observed on the nerves 
of the leaves in almost every species of Calamus. 
The hyperplastic epidermal origin of the scales of  Lepidocaryee is almost 
evident in the fruit of Myrialepis Scortechinii, where the scales are excessively 
minute and numerous and are reversed in the fruit, but are falcate, ascending, and 
inserted normally on the surface of the young ovary, as is seen when a longitu- 
dinial section of the ovary is made. 
XVIII. The Seed, 
Under the scaly peiranth there is usually a solitary seed; this, in the fresh 
state, is enveloped by its proper integument which is sometimes thin and dry, but is 
not infrequently, considerably developed, often fleshy, mucilaginous or acid, and in 
this case is not unpleasant to the taste; or is even loaded with tannic substances 
and astringent. In the dry fruit the integument is usually thin and adherent to the 
seed and more or less crustaceous, and often brittle when it originally was fleshy. 
The integument of C. aquatilis is of a very special structure because, besides the fleshy 
tissue of which it is composed and which after maturity is in time absorbed, it. 
contains numerous persistent short fibres attached normally to the testa of the seed 
and entirely clothing its surface with a velvety-pubescent covering, 
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