246 CONIFERS. [CLASS 



angiospermous, applied to all other flowering plants in 

 which the ovules are fertilized through the medium of the 

 stigma of a carpellary leaf. In the fruit, the ovule-bearing 

 scales are much enlarged and hard and woody in texture, 

 each scale bearing upon the upper surface a pair of winged 

 seeds. 



The scales, both of flower and fruit, are arranged upon 

 a common axis, in the form of a cone : hence the name 

 Coniferae applied to the Pine Family. 



FIG. 189. Scale of 6* inflores- FIG. 190. Scale of ? inflores- 



cence of Cypress. cence of same. 



OBSERVE, under the compound microscope, the pollen- 

 grains of Scotch Fir. Each grain bears at its two ex- 

 tremities an inflated vesicular dilatation of the outer coat 

 of the pollen-grain, which may probably have something 

 to do with the mode of transference of the pollen from 

 the male flowers to the ovules, which is due to the wind. 

 Dense clouds of the pollen are carried in the air often to 

 a considerable distance, giving rise sometimes to so-called 

 " showers of sulphur." When the pollen finds its way to 

 the apex of the ovule the extine, or outer coat of the grain, 

 shrivels up and separates from the intine. At about the 

 same time a portion of the protoplasmic contents of the 

 grain accumulates at about the middle of its broadly- 

 rounded back and becomes separated from the rest by 

 the formation of a cell-wall, convex toward the cavity of 

 the parent-cell. The new .cell is much the smaller of the 

 two and undergoes no further change (in Pine), while the 

 intine of the larger one grows out directly into the pollen- 



