FOURTH GROUP. SEED-PLANTS. 



The male flowers consist of an evidently elongated axis furnished with slaminal 

 leaves or sporophylls and terminating above in a naked apex (Fig. 253 A\ exactly 

 similar, for example, to a single sporangiferous spike of Selaginella or Lycopodium. 

 The stamina! leaves are usually more delicate than the foliage-leaves and of a different 

 colour, and are generally differentiated into a slender stalk and a peltate lamina 

 which bears the microsporangia or pollen-sacs on its under side, as for instance in 

 Taxus, the Cupressineae, and Abietineae (Figs. 252 A, JB, 253 A, B> 254 A); but 



FIG. 252. Taxus baccata. A male flower 

 magnified ; at a the pollen-sacs. B a stamen from 

 below with the pollen-sacs opened. C a piece of a 

 leafy shoot with a foliage leaf b, and the female 

 flower springing from its axil ; j its envelope of 

 scales, sk the ovule. D longitudinal section of the 

 same magnified ; * the integument, kk nucellus, at 

 * the aborted extremity of the shoot E longi- 

 tudinal section through an ovule in a more ad- 

 vanced state of development before fertilisation ; 

 i integument, kk nucellus, e endosperm, tn arillus, 

 s s leaves of the envelope. 



FIG. 253. Jiiniperus contmunis. A longi- 

 tudinal section of the male flower. B a stamen 

 seen from the front and the outside (the upper 

 figure), and one seen from behind and within 

 (the lower figure). C longitudinal section of the 

 female flower, a denotes the pollen-sacs, s the 

 peltate lamina of the staminal leaf, b lower leaves 

 of the flowering axis, c carpels, sk ovules, kk the 

 nucellus, * the integument. A and C magn. 

 about 12 times. 



there may be no flat expansion at the end of the stalk, as in Gmgko (Fig. 251 C), 

 where it is reduced to a small knob from which the pollen-sacs are suspended. That 

 the structures that bear the pollen-sacs in the Coniferae are undoubtedly metamor- 

 phosed leaves is shown by their form, and still more clearly by their position which 

 has been described above and by the history of their development. The pollen-sacs 

 are usually attached by a narrow base to the under side of the support and do not 

 unite together as they grow; their number is always much smaller than in the 

 Cycadeae and much more variable than in the Angiosperms ; the peltate portion of 



