1914] BURLINGAME—ARAUCARIA BRASILIENSIS 503 
others and is usually marked by a large thin spot, as is common 
among conifers. Occasional cells are binucleate, and sometimes 
the jacket is doubled in places (figs. 49, 50). In contrast to 
Agathis (3), the jacket is firmly united to the neck cells. In con- 
sequence of this the contents of the pollen tube pass through 
between the neck cells, in a manner to be described in another place. 
The growth and development of the central cell resembles that 
of most other conifers in its general outlines. It enlarges rapidly 
but remains poor in cytoplasm (figs. 37-40). At first there is a 
single large vacuole, later there are many small ones in the more 
abundant cytoplasm (figs. 41, 42). At maturity there are usually 
no vacuoles and the cytoplasm is very dense (fig. 43). The nucleus 
enlarges with the development of the central cell. At first it is 
placed in the upper central part (figs. 39-41). It later migrates 
to one side (fig. 42) and nearer the neck. From here it passes to a 
position just below the neck (fig. 45) as if about to divide into egg 
nucleus and ventral canal nucleus. I was unable to find any 
evidence that it does divide. No mitotic figures were seen in the 
developing archegonium, nor were any nuclei, other than the one, 
ever seen before fertilization, except in one ovule. In this case a 
number of small nuclei were present in the upper part of what 
appeared to be a mature archegonium as yet unattacked by a pollen 
tube. It would be rash, perhaps, to assert that such a ventral 
canal nucleus is never cut off, even though a persistent hunt for it 
has failed to reveal it. 
Discussion 
I shall not attempt at this time to discuss broadly the relation- 
ships of Araucaria to other members of the Coniferales, but merely 
to point out wherein it resembles some of them and in what ways 
it differs from all of them in certain features of its ovule and female 
gametophyte. 
One of the first points in which this species of Araucaria (also 
A. imbricata) differs from Agathis is in the length of time taken to 
mature seeds from the first appearance of the seed cone. From 
the time it can be first recognized until the seeds fall is approxi- 
mately 21 months. Eames (3) reports Agathis as forming the 
