OF THE EMBRYOS IN THE SEEDS OF CONIFEBiE. 573 



raarkably modified ; and they have ascertained some points 

 in Pinus itself that I had overlooked. 



In this memoir M. de Mirbel refers to his early obser- 

 vations on the structure of the seeds of Cycas which occur 

 in an essay read before the Academy of Sciences in 

 October 1810, and soon after published in the 'Annales 

 du Museum.'^ 



These observations and the figures illustrating them 

 clearly prove M. de Mirbel's knovi^Iedge of the plurality of 

 embryos in Cycas at that period. And in his recent memoir 

 on Conifer ts he regards them as giving the earliest notice of 

 that remarkable structure ; stating also that my first publi- 

 cation on the same subject was in 1835. 



But as the 'Prodromus Florae Novae HoUandise' was 

 published before M. de Mirbel's essay in the 'Annales du 

 Musdum/ which appears from his references to that work 

 in the essay in question, he must have overlooked the fol- 

 lowing passages : — 



" In Cycadi angulata puncta arese depressse apicis seminis 

 totidem canalibus brevibus respondent gelatina homogenea 

 primum repletis et membrana propria instructis, unico 

 quantum observavimua embryonifero, quo augente reliqui 

 mox obhterati sunt." — Prodr. p. 347. 



" Structura huic omnino similis hactenus absque exemplo 

 nee ulla analoga (nempe embryones plures in distinctis 

 cavitatibus ejusdem albuminis) nisi in Cycadi et nonnun- 

 quam in Visco cognita sit."— Prodr. p. 307. 



I may add, that this structure of Cycas was ascertained 

 in living plants on the east and north coasts of New Hol- 

 land in 1802 and 1803. 



The earliest observer of the principal fact, however, was 

 probably the late Aiibert du Petit Thouars, who in a disser- 

 tation on the structure and affinities of Cycas published in 

 1804,*^ distinctly notices the points on the surface and the 

 corresponding corpusculawithin the apex of the albumen, into 

 which corpuscula he hazards the conjecture that the grains vm 

 of pollen ei)ter and become the future embryos. This, in 



' Annales du Museum d'Hist. Nat. torn, xvi, p. 252, tab. 20. 

 ^ Histoire des Veg^taux des lies d'Afrique, p. 9, tab. 2, n. 



