2 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [yULY 
METHODS. 
Material was collected in the vicinity of Mesilla Park, N. M., 
from December 20, 1902, to May 11, 1903. The second collection was 
made one month after the first; and as development became more 
rapid collections were made at intervals of four days. The strobili, 
attached to a short piece of the stem, were packed in wet cotton, and 
on reaching the laboratory four days later were placed in a moist 
chamber to enable them to recover turgescence. That fixation 
immediately after removal from the tree is not absolutely necessary 
is shown by nuclei in all stages of division. Further treatment did 
not differ essentially from approved methods of microtechnique. 
THE STAMINATE STROBILUS. 
E. trijurca is monosporangiate, and the staminate as well as the 
ovulate strobili are borne in whorls around the nodes of the stem. 
Exceptional instances were noted in which the strobili were bispor- 
angiate (fig. 1). Strasburger figures such a strobilus in E. campy- 
lopoda, and refers to it as an abnormal inflorescence. In another 
instance two ovules were present in a staminate strobilus of E. 
trijurca, although one is the usual number in the ovulate strobilus. 
This last, however, has many exceptions. 
Shaw (’96) reports a strobilus of Sequoia sempervirens in which 
the upper part was ovulate and the lower staminate. Dickson (60) 
observed the same thing in Picea excelsa. Coulter and Chamberlain 
(or) figure strobili of Abies which are staminate at the apex and base 
and ovulate between. Goebel (’or) observed that in Pinus maritima 
the microsporangia were at the base of the strobilus and the megaspor- 
angia above. In the middle region he found rudimentary ovuliferous 
scales in the axils of the microsporophylls. In Tumboa the flowers 
are functionally monosporangiate, but in the center of a whorl of 
stamens there is a single functionless ovule with a spirally coiled 
micropyle. This seems to indicate that at a not remote period of 
its history the flowers were perfect. Ephedra, however, appears to — 
have gone a step farther, and has become wholly monosporangiate; 
and the occasional bisporangiate strobili are reversions. It seems 
that, instead of regarding such occasional strobili as abnormal, it is 
better to consider them as atavistic; as pointing back to a bisporangiate 
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