22 



PRINCIPLES OF PLANT-TERATOLOGY. 



The phenomenon, as described, for instance, by 

 Stenzel and Willkomm, consists in the appearance of 

 an extremely short shoot in the axil of the bract, 

 bearing, apparently, the two halves of the o villiferous 

 scale as its two first transversely-placed leaves ; this is 

 the main feature of the phenomenon and further detail 

 need not be gone into. These two lowest appendages 

 of the axillary shoot clearly represent the ovuliferous 

 scale which is cleft asunder, the two halves being 

 carried out of their normal median position into a 

 transverse one owing to the appearance between them 

 of the axillary bud ; in other examples the bud raises 

 them up some way above the level of the "bract," and 

 they may become more or less leaf-like, the ovules at 

 the same time becoming either completely suppressed 

 or imperfectly developed (PI. XXXI, figs. 2-6). These 

 appendages may even become united together on the 

 adaxial side of the shoot. This abnormality has been 

 observed chiefly in Larix europsea, Tsuga Brunoniana^ 

 Picea excelsa, and Pinus sp. 



Alexander Braun, in 1842, was the first to utilize 

 this phenomenon for the interpretation of the ovuli- 

 ferous scale and the female " cone " generally. He 

 held that the latter is essentially an inflorescence and 

 not a simple flower as in the case of the male "cone;" 

 and that the ovuliferous scale represents the two 

 first transversely-placed leaves, which were carpels, of 

 an axillary shoot which, on complete suppression of 

 the carpels, became fused by their posterior (i. e. 

 adaxial) margins,* the double carpel thus resulting 

 inevitably becoming adpressed to and basally united 

 with the corresponding, i. e. ventral or upper, surface 

 of the " bract." Elaborate observations and interpre- 

 tations on the same main lines were subsequently made 

 by Caspary, Stenzel, van Tieghem (in part), Will- 

 komm, Engelmann, Parlatore, Velenovsky, and Cela- 

 kovsky. The last-named author especially, by a most 



* Cf. precisely the same phenomenon observed by Klein on foliage-shoots 

 of Calycanthus and Calendula as described in vol. i of this work. 



