S7o STUDIES IN FOSSIL BOTANY 



the enveloping bracts) the tissue appears to be actually 

 continuous, forming, as it were, a closed pericarp, 

 perforated only by the micropyles of the seeds (see 

 Fig. 203, A and T),p). The pericarp is formed by the 

 cohesion of the interseminal scales. These organs 

 are dilated at their distal ends, between the seeds, so 

 as to form a continuous envelope, only interrupted 

 by narrow pits, into which the seeds exactly fit (see 

 Figs. 202 and 203, A). In the lower part of the 

 fruit, below the region of the seeds, the pericarp is 

 formed by the union of the outer and shorter scales. 

 In order to make the somewhat complicated arrange- 

 ment more intelligible, we may further quote Count 

 Solms-Laubach's summary : — " We have in the fructi- 

 fication (spadix) two kinds of organs of different 

 character and closely crowded together : the seed- 

 stalks (cords) [our pedicels] diverging above, cluster- 

 wise, and each terminating in a seed ; and the inter- 

 stitial organs [our interseminal scales], increasing 

 constantly in length from the periphery of the cluster 

 towards the inside, appearing by themselves in the 

 periphery, but mixed with the seed-stalks further in, 

 overtopping the seeds with their apices, and forming 

 by the union of their apices the homogeneous tissue- 

 layer of the surface of the fructification. In con- 

 sequence of this arrangement, every seed is sunk in 

 a pit, the orifice of which then narrows over the seed, 

 owing to the lateral outgrowth of its walls." 1 



This description should be compared with the 

 diagram, Fig. 203, A, and with the more detailed 

 Figs. 202, 203, D, and 204. We will now take the 



1 Annals of Botany, vol. v. 1891, p. 446. 



