PROLIFERATION. 



27 



ovules on its upper surface, i. e. the lower face of the 

 carpellary lobes. When an axillary shoot arises between 

 the " bract" and the o villiferous scale it splits the latter 

 into its two component parts, causing these to resume 

 their original orientation as lateral lobes of the "bract," 

 and also carries them up attached to its axis as appa- 

 rently the first transversely-placed pair of leaves 

 thereof. It is owing to the position assumed by them 

 that the real first pair of the axillary shoot comes to 

 assume an antero-posterior position. When the shoot 

 arises between the ovuliferous scale and the cone-axis, 

 the two halves of the scale have their lower surfaces 

 directed towards the axillary shoot, a fact which Penzig 

 (who is responsible for the elaboration of this theory) 

 regards as fatal to Braun's theory of the scale. But it 

 does not seem that this conclusion necessarily follows ; 

 for this particular position of the axillary shoot implies 

 its imperfect development, so that its first two leaves 

 still retain in part (as shown by their orientation) their 

 character as halves of a seminiferous scale. The fact 

 observed by Velenovsky of several fleshy ovuliferous 

 scales succeeding and completely resembling the two 

 ovuliferous scales on the axillary shoot, Penzig explains 

 by the other fact that in many cases the character of 

 an abnormally-formed phyllome is determined by that 

 of the normal phyllomes in juxtaposition to it ; he cites 

 instances in abnormal blooms of Antirrhinum, and 

 orchids in support of this. 



While admiring the clever hypothesis of Delpino and 

 Penzig, one feels inclined to regard it as somewhat 

 far-fetched.* Braun's theory must be held to be much 

 more natural and easy, and that which, on the whole, 

 explains the facts the best. 



If Braun's view is correct, the female cone of the 

 Coniferge is an inflorescence, and the foliar organs in 

 whose axils the abnormal shoots arise are bracts, while 



# The far-fetched nature of Delpino's theory is seen more clearly when 

 he comes to apply it to an explanation of the "double needle" of Sciadopitys 

 and the ovuliferous organ of Ginkgo, though in so doing he, of course, 

 exhibits his consistency of view. 



