372 Extracts from Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, 



sally, project beyond it to a short distance. This coat has undergone 

 scarcely any change, and corresponds in shape to the cavity of 

 the outer envelope. The nucleus is completely covered by both 

 integuments and its apex, which continues of the same form, is 

 occasionally tinged with brown. Within its substance, which is 

 entirely cellular, and towards its centre, there exists a small cavity, 

 lined with a membranous sac, attached apparently to the apex of 

 the cavity, and containing a number of minute grumous-looking 

 brown masses arranged without any obvious regularity. This sac, 

 I consider to be the amnios, with which it agrees in its development 

 and subsequent disappearance ; it exists at a rather early period, and 

 is developed within a cavity formed by some excavating process. 



"A short time after the fall of the male flowers, an extraordi- 

 nary change will be found to have occurred, consisting of the very 

 rapid and apparently sudden development of a new membrano-cellular 

 envelope between the second coat and the nucleus. This new 

 formation, which I may term the additional coat, envelopes the 

 nucleus pretty closely, and is continued upwards beyond the apex of 

 the nucleus into a cylindrical tubular process ; the mouth of the 

 tube being laciniate or fimbriated. At the period now referred to, 

 its apex barely projects beyond the outer envelope. During its de- 

 velopment no particular change has taken place either in the original 

 integuments or nucleus. At a somewhat later period, the ovules, 

 except in the instance quoted in the note, hitherto concealed by the 

 involucre, will be found exposed, and the outer coat to have become 

 of a green colour."* 



GNETACEiE. 



234. Independently of the singular organization of its ovule, the 

 genus Gnetum is remarkable for some other peculiarities. Its seed, 

 which resembles a drupe, has within their fleshy integument, a layer 

 of needle-like woody tissue, of a very remarkable nature, freely 

 separating when disturbed, and looking much like the hairs of 

 Cowhage. The embryo, according to Mr. Griffith, is attached to 

 an " enormously long tortuous and spirally but irregularly twisted 



* " In one species G. Brunonianum the ovules are at an early period expos- 

 ed, owing to the obsoleteness of the annulate involucre." 



