310 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [OCTOBER 
that the final destination of a bundle does not always determine to 
which sporophyll part it belongs. It is to be suspected that the 
bundle system of Agathis and Araucaria represents a complex of 
bract and scale bundles. Judging by the course of events in 
other conifers with single-veined vegetative leaves, it may be 
suggested that the large median lower bundle in Cunninghamia 
Davidiana is the bract bundle proper, which is accompanied 
for some distance into the free portion of the bract by a few scale 
bundles. 
Taxus presents some features which perhaps ought to be men- 
tioned. The single ovule is produced terminally on a secondary 
dwarf branch clothed with a few pairs of decussate bracts. The 
primary dwarf branch may occasionally become a long branch by 
the resumption of growth by its terminal bud. In all of the many 
ovules examined the ovule is flattened transversely to the upper- 
most pair of bracts. The four final bundles of the branch of the 
axis which fuse in pairs before entering the two wings of the ovule 
fuse in pairs across the next lower pair of bracts, and not across the 
uppermost pair of bracts, a behavior which is contrary to what 
should be expected if the fused bundle were destined to supply an 
axillary structure. The dying out of bundles near the tip of the 
axis and the consequent failure to supply the uppermost bracts or 
enter into the formation of the ovuliferous supplies, as the case may 
be, suggest that a general reduction and loss of parts is taking 
place. The terminal position of the ovule, the flattening of the 
ovule transversely to the uppermost bracts, and the fusion in pairs 
of the final bundles of the axis in the definite way to form the two 
bundles of the wings of the ovule suggest a structure which might 
result from a process well under way in Juniperus communis, 
namely the fusion of sporophylls to form a single structure. This 
in Taxus would imply the reduction of the ovules to one, the com- 
plete fusion of two sporophylls to the integument of the ovule, and 
finally the reduction of the vascular supply of each sporophyll to 
the single weak bundle present in the wing of the ovule. In view 
of the modifications that are apparently taking place in other coni- 
fers such a course of events may be possible, but further 
investigation is necessary. 
