Remarks on the Natural order Cycadedb, 49 



ovulum, and contracting no adhesion with it. (Fig. 3, a.) This we 

 believe to be the tercine. From the apex of this coat, if the ovulum 

 be dissected carefully, (even in a nearly matured state,) a minute co- 

 lumnar summit (fig. 3, 6) is seen projecting upwards from the nucleus 

 to the perforated apex of the inner membrane (secundine) of the 

 ovulum. This is undoubtedly the point through which impregna- 

 tion takes place, and as we can perceive no trace of the fungous sub- 

 stance* which in Richard's figures is represented as occupying a 

 considerable portion of space between the nucleus and the inner in- 

 tegument, (the ovarium,) may we not infer that in this species it, in 

 a state of greater development, appears under the form of the tercine 

 or proper coating of the nucleus ? 



In the mature seeds of C. revoluta, the micropyle is distinctly vis- 

 ible upon the projecting point of the corneous inner integument of 

 the seed. This pi^ojecting apex assumes, in the young ovula, some- 

 what the appearance of a dilated stigma, and the primine, or outer 

 membrane surrounding it, also shows an opening, (the exostome, fig. 

 2, a,) which is the perforated style of the older authors. In the 

 present specimen of C. revoluta, the exostome has disappeared en- 

 tirely, as the seeds increased in size, and the true foramen of the 

 ovulum has closed in such a manner as only to show the micropyle 

 upon the apex of the inner integument, showing however a distinct 

 trace of the foramen leading down to the minute process arising from 

 the nucleus. (Fig. 3, c.) 



As the seed approaches maturity, the outer integument, which is 

 still covered, like the contracted leaf with which it is connected, by 

 a dense woolly pubescence, becomes in its inferior part easily sepa- 

 rable from the inner integument, which has now acquired a hard and 

 corneous texture ; this in C. revoluta is undoubtedly distinct from 

 the outer soft covering, both together constituting the two genuine 

 integuments of the seed. That these two integuments are not easily 

 separable throughout, is no proof of their not being distinct. 



It is evident, therefore, that the so-called female flowers and fruit 

 in Cycadese and Coniferae, are naked ovula and seeds, not only from 

 their position upon an imperfectly formed ovarium, (the convolution 

 of which not having taken place, the seeds are consequently left na- 

 ked upon its face or margin,) but from their similarity to other plants 



* SirW. J. Hooker, (Bot. Mag. tab. 2827.) has remarked the absence of this fun- 

 gous substance in the specimens of C. circinalis which he examined, and also the 

 presence of the same " membranous lining" observed by as in C. revoluta. 



Vol. XXXII.— No. 1. 7 



