the Male and Female Flowers of Conifers. 213 



we find that they are a little larger and broader, their margins 

 somewhat laciniated instead of being smooth, their colour, in- 

 stead of being green, yellowish fawn or pale brown, and their 

 texture, more especially at the margins, petaloid. It is often 

 difficult to tell whether an organ is a petal, a sepal, a bract, or a 

 leaf; but, speaking in a general way, there are two characters 

 which are rarely absent from petals, and help to distinguish 

 them : one of these is colour, and the other a peculiar elongated 

 cell-structure which does not, indeed, essentially differ from 

 other cell-structures, but which has a different aspect and is 

 easily recognized. We all know the texture of a petal ; and 

 where that texture is present, either in whole or in part, it 

 furnishes a presumption that the organ possessing it is a 

 petal. In Conifers it often suggests the fact at once where, but 

 for it, the petaloid nature of the part could only be determined 

 in some more roundabout and difficult way. For instance, in 

 Cunninghamia Sinensis, where what is called the scale (but what 

 in that particular instance is the petal) is, as plainly as can be, 

 a continuation of the hard leaves of the branch, and, bearing 

 stomata, traces of the petaloid structure will be found in the 

 laciniated margin. So in Wellingtonia and all the Cypresses, 

 the scales which form the male catkin, although merely the 

 continuation of the leaves of the branch, are the petals, each 

 petal being one flower, and the small rounded balls which peej) 

 out at their base are the anthers ; these are sessile and grow at, 

 along, or on the inferior margin of the petal, as shown in PI. X. 

 figs. 2 & 3. Of course it makes no difference physiologically 

 whether they are sessile or grow upon longer or shorter fila- 

 ments or foot-stalks. At first they grow facing inwards towards 

 the axis; but by-and-by, probably from there not being sufficient 

 space there, they are turned backwards, as shown in fig. 4. I 

 should here observe that figs. 2 and 4 are respectively of Wel- 

 lingtonia and Sequoia sempervirens (the flowers of which corre- 

 spond in all respects), the former being what I observed first in 

 Wellingtonia, and the latter what I saw at a somewhat later date 

 in S. sempervirens. I have no doubt that if I had had the oppor- 

 tunity of observing Wellingtonia at the same later date, I should 

 have found the anthers reverted as in the other, or that if I had 

 thought of examining S. sempei'virens at the earlier date, I 

 should then have found the anthers facing as in tig. 2. 



In firs and pines exactly the same arrangement subsists : the 

 male flower assumes the form of fig. 5 when young, and of fig. 6 

 when full-grown and the anthers have bui'st and the pollen been 

 shed. Fig. 7 shows the underside before it has burst ; and tlic 

 longitudinal line on each anther shows where it bursts, having 

 previously thinned off, perhaps through having been rubbed by 



