Mr. J. Miers on Ephedra. 427 
tegument (tegmen), which it closely embraces, its mouth being 
quite unclosed. The tegmen, though free in its upper moiety 
and partly covered by the free portion of the testa, is conical 
and much thickened in that part, very opake and white, and 
often corrugated, being closed in its somewhat attenuated apex 
by a globular reddish gland (“tuberculus stigmaticus,” Rich.), 
from the concave centre of which rises the tubular style-like 
process before mentioned, which, after traversing the vacant 
portion of the cell, passes through the foramen of the pericarp, 
and generally extends beyond it to a distance of nearly half its 
length: this process, called a “tubillus,” is of the same texture 
and colour as the upper portion of the tegmen, and is similarly 
reticulated ; so that no doubt can exist that it is an extension of 
the mouth of that integument, but closed by the formation of a 
gland at the usual place of the micropyle: the tubillus beyond 
this is hollow for its whole length, its apex being open and more 
or less unequally two-lipped. The albumen fills the tegmen, is 
fleshy, compressed, plano-convex, rounded at its base, but gra- 
dually attenuated towards its apex, where it is slender, and 
sometimes extends beyond the radicle. The enclosed embryo is 
nearly the length of the albumen, its lower moiety consisting of 
two compressed cotyledons with nearly straight sides, their faces 
being parallel to the flat side of the pericarp and to the lobes of 
the involucel: the radicle, which points to the summit of the 
carpel, is nearly as long as the cotyledons, but only a quarter of 
their breadth, being terete, its outer or epirhizal portion being 
white and opake, while its internal or neorhizal part is fleshy, 
more pointed, apparently of the same colour and texture as the 
cotyledons, with which it seems continuous; the epirhizal por- 
tion is more cellular, like a distinct envelope, often extending 
beyond the apex of the neorhiza, which is the growing-point of 
the future root. In the seed of some species of Ephedra, where 
the summit of the inner integument below the micropylar gland 
is greatly attenuated, and often so much corrugated that it can 
be further lengthened by force, the upper portion of the albumen 
becomes also attenuated, and as it extends beyond the point of 
the radicle, and contracts an adherence with the gland, it looks 
almost like a short suspensor; but its texture shows that it is 
only a continuation of the albuminous mass, there being no 
trace of anything analogous to the suspensor described by Gau- 
dichaud and Griffiths in Gnetum. From the above facts, it will 
be seen that the seed of Ephedra is quite atropous, and (if we 
except the formation of the tubillus) little different in its entire 
structure from that of many of the Urticacea. 
I have thus detailed minutely the floral and seminal structure 
of Ephedra, in proof of Blume’s declaration that the Gnetacee 
