IN CYCADE^ AND CONIPERjE. 459 



structure of the female flower. But in CycadejB, at least, 

 and especially in Zamia, the resemblance between the male 

 and female spadices is so great, that if the female be ana- 

 logous to an ovarium, the partial male spadix must be con- 

 sidered as a single anthera, producing on its surface either 

 naked grains of pollen, or pollen subdivided into masses, 

 each furnished with its proper membrane. 



Both these views may at present, perhaps, appear equally 

 paradoxical ; yet the former was entertained by Linnaeus, 

 who expresses himself on the subject in the following terms, 

 " Pulvis floridus in Cycade minime pro Antheris agnoscen- 

 dus est sed pro nudo poUine, quod unusquisque qui un- im 

 quam pollen antherarum in plantis examinavit fatebitur."^ 

 That this opinion, so confidently held by Linnaeus, was never 

 adopted by any other botanist, seems in part to have arisen 

 from his having extended it to dorsiferous Ferns. Limited 

 to Cycadeae, however, it does not appear to me so very im- 

 probable as to deserve to be rejected without examination. 

 It receives, at least, some support from the separation, 

 in several cases, especially in the American Zamiae, of the 

 grains into two distinct, and sometimes nearly marginal, 

 masses, representing, as it may be supposed, the lobes of an 

 anthera ; and also from their approximation in definite num- 

 bers, generally in fours, analogous to the quaternary union 

 of the grains of pollen, not unfrequent in the antherae of 

 several other families of plants. The great size of the sup- 

 posed grains of pollen, with the thickening and regular burst- 

 ing of their membrane, may be said to be circumstances 

 obviously connected with their production and persistence 

 on the surface of an anthera, distant from the female flower ; 

 and with this economy, a corresponding enlargement of the 

 contained particles or fovilla might also be expected. On 

 examining these particles, however, I find them not only 

 equal in size to the grains of pollen of many antherae, but 

 being elliptical and marked on one side with a longitudinal 

 furrow, they have that form which is one of the most com- 

 mon in the simple pollen of phaenogamous plants. To 

 suppose, therefore, merely on the grounds already stated, 



' Mem. de V Acad, des Scien. de Paris, 1775, p. 518. 



