438 BOTANY 



except in the female Cycas plants, is prolonged sympodially by a lateral 

 branch, which crowds the flower to one side. The male flowers are 

 cone-like, with numerous scale- or shield-shaped staminal leaves (Fig. 

 369, 3), which bear an indefinite number of pollen-sacs on their under 

 side. The species of Cycas produce a single, apical, female flower, of 

 which the carpellary leaves are similar to the foliage-leaves, but on a 

 reduced scale (Fig. 369, 2). In other members of this family the 

 apex of the stem terminates in several cone-like female flowers with 

 scale-like leaves. Two or more ovules, larger than a cherry, are borne 

 on each carpel. They are atropous, and provided at the apex of the 

 nucellus with a cavity, the pollen-chamber, in which the pollen-grains, 

 which have been carried thither by the wind, accumulate preparatory 

 to fertilisation. The seed (Fig. 369, 4) resembles a drupe or stone- 

 fruit in that the seed-coats are differentiated as an outer fleshy layer 

 and a hard inner coat. The mealy endosperm envelops a two-leaved 

 embryo attached to a coiled suspensor. 



The Cyeadaceae are all tropical or sub-tropical plants, and are found in both 

 hemispheres, but with a limited area of distribution of the individual species. At 

 the present time they occur only in small numbers ; but in earlier geological 

 periods up to the Cretaceous, as is proved by the extensive occurrence of fossil 

 remains, they formed a considerable proportion of the vegetation of all zones. 



Order 2. Coniferae 



Flowers naked ; the male catkin-like with scale-like staminal 

 leaves, bearing the pollen-sacs on the under side ; the female flowers 

 and the fruit of varying and sometimes complicated structure. What 

 is here designated, for the sake of simplicity, a single female flower is 

 also spoken of as an inflorescence. Freely branching, woody plants 

 destitute OF true vessels, generally traversed in all parts by resin 

 canals. Leaves simple, usually needle- or scale-shaped. 



Many Conifers are tall forest trees of a pyramidal shape, with mast- 

 like, tapering stems, from which spring apparent whorls of horizontal 

 and much-branched lateral shoots. Frequently, when growing thickly 

 crowded together, the lower branches fall off after a time, so that the 

 stem becomes naked for the greater part of its height, and bears only a 

 pyramid-shaped crown of upper branches. These may become finally 

 more widely outspread, like the Mediterranean Pines (Pinus Pima), or 

 spread out horizontally, as in the Brazilian Araucarias (Araucaria 

 brasfiiensis). Comparatively few of the arborescent species deviate from 

 the pyramidal form ; for example, the Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), 

 with its erect branches. The shrub-like species, such as the Junipers, 

 on the contrary, are frequently irregularly branched and bushy. 



The male flowers are either solitary or aggregated in clusters ; they 

 fall after attaining maturity like the catkins of the Willow and other 

 Amentaceae, which they also resemble somewhat in structure without 



