GROUND HEMLOCK 91 



125. It will be interesting now to compare with the 

 structure of the Pine that of another member of the same 

 group the Ground Hemlock, a low shrub common enough 

 in our Canadian woods. This, like the Pine, is evergreen. 

 The leaves, however, are not needle-shaped, but flat ; and 

 they are not clustered, but project singly from the sides of 

 the stem. 



126. The staminate flowers (Fig. 119) grow in small 

 catkins at the ends of very short lateral shoots which 



bear about their bases 

 many scale-like 

 bracts. The stamens 

 are somewhat differ- 

 ent from those of 

 Pine, being umbrella- 

 shaped (peltate), and 

 bearing from three to 

 Fig - m Fig - liL - eight pollen-sacs upon 



the under surface. The fertile flowers are also at the 

 extremities of short, scaly-bracted branches, but in this 

 plant the flowers occur singly^ and are not aggregated in 

 cones. Fig. 120 shows a section of a fertile branch with 

 its bracts and the single naked ovule at its extremity. 

 Around the base of the ovule there is a fleshy ring or disk 

 (shown in section at a in the figure). The pollen is conveyed 

 by the wind directly to the micropyle, and after fertiliza- 

 tion, and during the development of the seed, the fleshy 

 ring upon which it rests grows upward so as to surround 

 the seed and give the fruit a remarkable berry-like 

 appearance (Fig. 121). This fleshy covering (which is 



Fig. 120. Section of fertile branch of Ground Hemlock ; s, the apparently 

 terminal ovule ; i, its integument ; k, the nucellus ; in, the micropyle ; a a, 

 the rudiment of the aril, which fina<ly surrounds the seed ; b b t bracts. (Prantl). 



Fig. 121. The same with mature fruit, /. (Prantl). 



