THE MORPHOLOGY AND AFFINITIES OF GNETUM 1 39 
(b) Ovulate. — The ovulate inflorescences, like the staminate, may 
be axillary, terminal or on old wood. Like the staminate ones, too, 
they may consist of a single strobilus or be more or less branched and 
paniculate. For any given species the particular form of the in- 
florescence is the same in the female as in the male. Each strobilus 
further resembles the male ones in consisting of a series of cups with 
flowers in their axils. But the cups are not contiguous as in the male 
and there is normally never more than a single cycle of flowers above 
each one. I have never found an ovulate strobilus bearing staminate 
flowers. 
2. Abnormal. — Several kinds of abnormal inflorescences have 
been observed which will be described in full in a subsequent paper. 
Only two kinds need concern us at present. In one the bracts do 
not form a series of collars but a continuous spiral. In other words 
the flowers are arranged in a spiral and not in cycles, as is usual (see 
fig. I, Plate II). The turns of the spiral are about the same distance 
apart as are the cycles of the normal. Some strobili are partly spiral 
and partly cyclic. Sometimes the spiral elevation corresponding to 
the collars is broken up into a series of bracts. These abnormal 
strobili may be either staminate or ovulate but more frequently they 
are ovulate. They are by no means rare. I have observed them in 
every species with which I have worked. On some specimens no 
other kind of strobili was found, indicating that it is perhaps an 
hereditary character. 
Although the anatomy of these strobili has not yet been studied 
certain inferences seem to be justified. It seems clear that they repre- 
sent a return to an ancestral condition. The spiral arrangement is 
the prevailing one in all groups of Gymnosperms except the Gnetales 
and these abnormal strobili merely represent reversions to that 
primitive Gymnosperm condition. The cyclic arrangement in the 
strobili of Gnetum has then been recently acquired. 
It should be pointed out further that these strobili bear a remark- 
able resemblance to the catkins of the lower Dicotyledons. There 
is a central axis bearing bracts arranged in a spiral and in the axils of 
these bracts are borne the flowers just as in the Amentales. Further- 
more, evidence will be presented later (page 18) to show that the 
female flowers of Gnetum have an ovary and perianth similar to those 
of the Amentalean flowers. It is therefore evident that these ab- 
normal strobili of Gnetum are remarkably similar to those of the 
