CONIFERM. 
gonia of Taxiis are short ; in those of the Abietine^ the oosphere is elongated ; 
in the Cupressineae it becomes angular from the pressure of the adjacent cells. 
The number of the archegonia which are formed in the endosperm beneath the 
apex of the embryo-sac is very various ; Hofmeister and Strasburger state that in 
the Abietineae it is from three to five, in the Cupressineae from five to fifteen 
(according to Schacht it may even be thirty), in Taxus baccata from five to eight. 
The continuous growth of the surrounding endosperm causes the formation of 
funnel-shaped depressions above the archegonia, which in some Abietincaa are but 
Fig. -iSS.—yunifieyits conunmiis (after Hofmeister). / three archegonia cp close beside one another, in two of them 
the rudimentary embryo eixs seen at the lower end of the oosphere, d neck-cells, / pollen-tube (July 28) (x 300). // a 
similar section, e e the endosperm, v v the embryos ; /// lower end of one of a suspensor with the rudiment of the embryo 
eb; /^^ longitudinal section of the nucellus /SA, e the endosperm, e' portion of the endosperm that is broken up,/ pollen- 
tube, cp the archegonia, v the suspensors (beginning of August) (X 80). 
shallow, in Pinns Pinaster, P. Sirobus, &c., deep and narrow. In these species each 
of the funnel-shaped depressions leads down only to the neck of one archegonium ; 
in the Cupressineae {Calliiris, Thuja, and Juniperus), where they lie closely crowded 
together, the cluster of them is walled round by the endosperm, and a funnel is 
formed common to them all, which still remains closed by the cell-wall of the 
embryo-sac. 
Ferlilisation. The pollination of the ovules takes place before the archegonia 
are formed in the endosperm ; the pollen-grains, having reached the apex of the 
