IN CYCADE^ AND CONIFERS. 461 



on each squama, as Agathis and Araucaria, where their 

 number is considerable and apparently indefinite, and more 

 particularly still in Cunninghamia, or Belis,^ in which the 

 lobes, though only three in number, agree in this respect, 

 as well as in insertion and direction, with the ovula. The 

 supposition, that in such cases all the lobes of each squama 

 are cells of one and the same anthera, receives but little 

 support either from the origin and arrangement of the lobes 

 themselves, or from the structure of other phsenogamous 

 plants : the only cases of apparent, though doubtful, ana- 

 logy that I can at present recollect occurring in Aphyteia, 

 and perhaps in some Cucurbitaceae. 



That part of my subject, therefore, which relates to the 

 analogy between the male and female flowers in Cycadeae 

 and Coniferse, I consider the least satisfactory, both in 

 regard to the immediate question of the existence of an 

 anomalous ovarium in these families, and to the hypothesis 

 repeatedly referred to, of the origin of the sexual organs of 

 all phsenogamous plants. 



In concluding this digression, I have to express my 

 regret that it should have so far exceeded the limits [665 

 proper for its introduction into the present work. In giving 

 an account, however, of the genus of plants to which it is 

 annexed, I had to describe a structure, of whose nature 

 and importance it was necessary I should show myself 

 aware ; and circumstances have occurred while I was en- 

 gaged in preparing this account, which determined me to 

 enter much more fully into the subject than I had originally 

 intended. 



' In communicating specimens of this plant to the late M. Richard, for his 

 intended monograph of ConiferEE, I added some remarks on its structure, 

 agreeing with tliose here made. I at the same time requested that, if he 

 objected to Mr. Salisbury's Belis as liable to be confounded with Bellis, the 

 genus might be named Cunninghamia, to commemorate the merits of Mr. 

 James CunningJiam, an excellent observer in his time, by whom this plant was 

 discovered; and in honour of Mr. Allan Cunningham, the very deserving 

 botanist who accompanied Mr. Oxley in his first expedition into the interior of 

 New South Wales, and Captain King in all his voyages of survey of the Coasts 

 of New Holland. 



