May 28th, 1895, 



The President in the chair. Forty members present. Mr. G, 

 C Walton, F.L.S., read the following paper on 



PINES AND FIRS, 



Which was illustrated by numerous fresh and dry specimens ob- 

 tained chiefly in the neighbourhood of Folkestone. 



The title of this paper must be taken to stand for all trees and 

 shrubs that belong to the natural order '* Ooniferae," the order of 

 cone-bearers. As you have an order of pod-bearers, so you have 

 one of which the fruit is called a cone, because in shape it is often 

 more or less conical. While, however, a pea pod is of very simple 

 structure, a cone is a typical compound or collective fruit. In this 

 respect it resembles a pineapple, a compound fruit which owes its 

 name to its outward resemblance to an unopened pine cone. A 

 cone consists of an axis round which are arranged scales and 

 bracts which bear ovules on their upper surface. A diagram, or 

 better still, a specimen, will show that these ovules are not 

 enclosed in vessels (as a pea is enclosed in a pod), but are without 

 any covering, except bracts and scales, the former being looked 

 upon by most botanists as open carpellary leaves. The ovules are 

 the future seeds, which, not being enclosed in a fruit, are called 

 *' naked." As the seeds of many species do not ripen the first 

 year, they remain for months covered up by the scales (which 

 overlap each other like tiles on a roof), and are not exposed until 

 the scales separate. 



Lindley, in 1833, grouped the Coniferae and Cycadeae, and called 

 them G^'mnospermia (naked-seeded plants), and, as such, together 

 with the order Gnetacete, they are still known. These three orders 

 are of very great interest, and they are somewhat of a puzzle to 

 the systematic botanist who wishes to give them all the importance 

 they deserve, and no more. They are usually put above the 

 monocotyledons or endogens. But some think they should be 

 put leloxv them, and be looked upon as coming between the flower- 

 ing and flowerless plants. Why this should be, is by no means 

 plain to the non-botanical ; but reasons, more or less satisfactory, 

 can be given for many things, and for this amongst them. Geology 

 teaches that gymnosperms grew on this earth of ours long, long 

 before the monocotyledons, and much longer still before the true 

 dicotlyedons, and partly from that fact the evolutionist argues that 



