ON THE PLURALITY, &c.^ m 



The following short paper on a subject wliieli I intend 

 to treat at greater length, contains a few facts of sutticient 

 interest perhaps to achnit of its l)eing received as a com- 

 munication to the present meeting. 



In my observations on the structure of the female flower 



1 Read before the British Association at Edinburgh in Auj^ust 1S34, and 

 publisiied in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for October 1843. The fol- 

 lowini? abstract was given in the "Report of theFourtli Meeting of the British 

 Association," 1835, pp. 590-7: — "The earliest observations of the author on 

 this subject were made in the summer of 1826, soon after the publication of 

 liis remarks on the female flower of CycudecB and Coniferde. He then found 

 that in several Co/iifercCy namely, Finns Strobus^ Abies excelsa^ and tiie common 

 Larch, the })lurality of embryos in the impregnated ovulum was equally con- 

 stant, and their arrangement in the albumen as regular as in Cycadeie ; and 

 similar observations made during the present summer on several oilier species, 

 especially Tinas sylvestris and P. Pinaster^ render it highly probable tliat the 

 same structure exists in the whole family. Tlie lirst change which takes place 

 in the impregnated ovulum of the Conifer<s examined, is the proiluction or 

 separation of a solid body within the original nucleus. In this inner body, or 

 albumen, several subcyliudrical corp\iscula, of a somewhat different colour and 

 consistence from the mass of the albumen, seated near its apex and arranged 

 in a circular series, soon become visible. In each of these corpuscula, which 

 are from three to six in number, a single thread or funiculus, consisting of 

 several, generally of four, elongated cells or vessels, with or without transvei'sfe 

 septa, originates. The funiculi are not unfrequently ramified, each branch or 

 division terminating in a minute rudiment of an embryo. But as the lateral 

 branches of the funiculi usually consist of a single elongated cell or vessel, 

 while the principal or terminal branch is generally formed of more than one, 

 embryos in Conijene may originate either in one or in several cells, even in the 

 same funiculus. A similar ramification in the funiculi of the Cycas circinalis 

 has been observed by the author. Instances of the occasional introduction of 

 more than one embryo in the seeds of the several plants belonging to other 

 families have long been known, but their constant iilurality and rcgidar arrangc- 

 meut have hitherto only been observed in C^cadece and Coniferce." 



