the Male and Female Fluivcrs of Cunifers. 217 



view I have taken of the nature of the scale in one of the results 

 announced by Baillon. No doubt we differ in some respects. 

 He holds, and so do T, that the fructification of Conifers is not 

 gymnospermatous, but that it possesses a true dicarpellary ovary; 

 but he holds also that it is without floral envelopes, in which, as 

 already said, I do not agree. But the inference he arrived at 

 which has most interest to me is, that " the cupule, of various 

 consistence and form, which surrounds the ovary, and which in 

 several genera has received the name of aril, is a later produc- 

 tion, although anterior to fecundation, as is the case in those 

 floral organs (resulting from an ulterior expansion of the axis) 

 which have been termed disks." 



This seems to mean that the cupule of the yew is a disk. I 

 so hold it, and regard it as the homologue of the scale in the 

 pines; onl)', the flower being here solitary, the seed is wholly 

 surrounded by the disk, instead of, as in the pine (where it is 

 not solitary), being confined to one side, its place on the other 

 being supplied by the back of the next disk, on which it leans. 

 If Baillon also meant to include the scale of the pines under the 

 term cupule, then he has anticipated me in the view which I 

 now propound, and I must content myself with the ejaculation 

 " Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.^' But I think I may 

 (indeed, in the interest of the hypothesis, I ought to) state that 

 my view is neither borrowed nor adapted from that of Baillon : 

 I arrived at it by the route I have above pointed out ; and it 

 was only on turning back to Baillon^s paper, in order to verify 

 my statement of his other views, for the purpose of this paper, 

 that I noticed the bearing of the passage above quoted. 



Thus arrived at by independent minds, and by a different 

 course of reasoning, the probability of its being the true solution 

 is materially strengthened. 



If, then, the bract is the petal and the wing of the seed the 

 pistil, what is the scale ? It cannot be the pericarp (which is 

 the most tempting and natural-looking idea), because the peri- 

 carp must necessarily be one of the coats of the pistil. There 

 is only one thing that it can be ; and that is, the disk. The 

 definition of a disk is, that it is whatever intervenes between the 

 stamens and the pistil. To be sure, we have no stamens here; 

 but we know very well where they should be if the flower were 

 hermaphrodite, viz. springing from the base of the bract behind 

 the scale ; so that by no contrivance could they come between 

 the scale and the germ growing on its base. 



The scale must therefore be the disk. That organ assumes great 

 variety of form, such as scales, hairs, glands, petaloid appendages ; 

 but that form which seems most parallel to the present case is the 

 inner lining of the hip of the rose. In fact the fruit of the Conifer 



