^ 4 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL EORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



An investigation of the various stages of growth of each 

 species is not only of the greatest importance from a genealogical 

 point of view, but it supplies the explanation to many a puzzling 

 circumstance in their cultivation, and furnishes us with many 

 hints which we may utilise in our daily practice. I would, there- 

 fore, strongly urge upon those who have leisure to devote to such 

 investigation the comparative study of the living Conifers during 

 the successive stages of their growth. They should not confine 

 themselves to the investigation of any one species taken as a 

 type, but they should examine comparatively, organ by organ, 

 m.ember by member, as many forms as they can obtain, and 

 they should arrange and classify the results in due order, and 

 with a due sense of proportion. In this manner the student 

 should pass in review the whole life-history of the plants from 

 the egg-stage to that of the " oospore " or ripe seed, and from 

 the first formation of the embryo to the close of embryonic life — as 

 represented in the process of germination, " the hatching of the 

 chicken," and the complete development of such parts as were 

 originally within the fertilised egg. 



After germination comes an adolescent or transition stage, 

 which is a particularly interesting one in Conifers. After the 

 seed-leaves have been formed there are produced in very many, 

 if not in all Conifers, leaves of a shape differing, on the one hand, 

 from that of the seed-leaves, and, on the other, from that of the 

 adult foliage. Such leaves are, of course, familiar to all who 

 have had to do with the raising of Conifers. Again, look at the 

 Junipers, especially such a one as J. cJiinensis, and you will see 

 on the same branch two kinds of leaves, the one transitional and 

 temporary, the other characteristic of the adult form. 



The Eetinosporas, so called, of our gardens have no separate 

 existence as a genus, or even as species. They are mere 

 stages in the growth of certain species of Thuya, of Cupressus, 

 of Chamfficyparis, or of Juniperus. On the selfsame bush we 

 find specimens of two or three difterent kinds of Hetinospora, 

 and we see others reverting to the adult form, and bearing the 

 cones peculiar to it. 



Of the adult stage I need say no more on this occasion than 

 may serve to remind you that this is pre-eminently the stage in 

 which the plant is adapted to reproduce itself, either by bud or 

 by seed. 



