SPXT. II 



PHANEROGAMIA 



439 



morphologically being equivalent to them, since catkins are inflorescences. 

 The stamens, which as a rule are numerous, are scale- or shield-shaped, 

 with two or more, rarely many (as many as twenty in Araucaria), 

 pollen-sacs on their under sides. 



The wide variations in the structure of the female flowers and the 

 fruit constitute the distinctive characteristics of the different families 

 into which the order is divided. 



Family Pinaeeae. — Female flowers, in the form of cones ; the 

 ovules arising in scale-like carpels, and ripening to seeds while still 

 enclosed in them; seed-coats dry, without an aril (Figs. 370-373). 



The male flowers are capitate or cylindrical, frequently united in 

 clusters. The female flowers consist generally of a spindle-shaped axis 



Fig. 370. — Juniperus communis, a, Male flower ; b, fertile shoot with female flower ; c, female flower 

 with one scale bent out of place ; d, fruit. — Officinal. (After Berg and Schmidt, all magnified.) 



with numerous, spirally arranged, imbricated scales. In the Juniper 

 and its allies the flower is composed of only a few verticillate carpels. 

 In many genera the carpels are simple (Juniperus, Agathis) ; in others 

 they have a scale-like outgrowth on the upper side ; in other cases, again 

 (Abietoideae), two scales are present, lying one above the other, the 

 uppermost of which, the fertile scale, bears the ovules and is 

 situated in the axil of the other, the COVER-SCALE (Fig. 366). 



According to this description, both scales of the Abietoideae are regarded as 

 parts of a deeply-divided leaf, resembling somewhat a fertile leaf of Ophioglossum. 

 In conformity with this view, the original condition would be represented by the 

 carpels of Agathis. The first beginning of the division is represented by the out- 

 growths of the scales in the case of the Taxodioideae and Araucarias, and the com- 

 plete division is represented by the two scales of the Abietoideae. On the other 

 hand, it has also been held that the fertile scale is a, flattened branch or cladode 

 in the axil of a subtending bract, both of which have become fused together in the 

 Taxodioideae and Araucarias. 



Two ovules, less frequently only one or a larger number, spring 



