Notes on the Pollination of some South African Cycads. 265 
worth recording that pairing occurs on the <^ cones in the case of another 
weevil which frequents E. Friderici Guilielmi. 
The female cone at the time of pollination has an average height of 
about 17 inches. [It has to be remembered that E. villosus forms no aerial 
stem, and that these figures therefore represent the height above the level of 
the ground.] The original green of the sporophylls has begun to fade into 
yellow, but has not yet attained the beautiful orange colour of the mature 
cone. As in the male, the sporophylls imbricate descendingly, and there 
is little or no separation at the time the microsporangia are dehiscing. It 
is therefore apparent that pollen settling down out of the air cannot find 
admission between the macrosporophylls. It is almost equally impossible 
to conceive how pollen borne horizontally could effect an entrance, and if 
it did one would expect to find only the ovules on the side of the prevailing 
wind fertilised. But although the results obtained by Professor Pearson and 
myself, after orienting the cones and examining every seed, showed that 
the fertilisation had occurred approximately equally on all sides, and in at 
least one of the cones examined I am quite certain that on two sides there 
were no male cones within a distance of several miles. From the nature of 
the imbrication only pollen carried by wind moving at an angle of at 
least 45° to the horizontal could possibly effect an entrance, and even then 
there is the difficulty of conceiving how it could reach the centrally 
directed micropyles. It has also to be remembered that the male cones 
are the taller, and that even if the wind was blowing at the required angle 
much the greater part of the pollen would be carried over the top of the 
average female cone. 
An examination of almost any female cone from June onward reveals 
the fact that a proportion of the seeds, which may vary from 30 to 100 per 
cent, are parasitised by the same species of Phlseophagus as frequents the 
male cone. With the exception of two dead weevils which I found in June, 
1907, with the rostrum embedded in the tissue of the ovules, and to 
one of which pollen masses were still adhering, I have never found the 
pollen-laden insects on female cones in the wild state, but in a specimen 
growing under almost natural conditions in our local park they were 
noticed in large numbers, and from the frequency with which the ovules 
are parasitised there can be no reasonable doubt but that the phenomenon 
is of regular occurrence. 
Since the lower swollen peltate part of each sporophyll overlaps part 
of the two immediately below it, and as these curve inwardly where 
they meet, there is left at the time of pollination an opening large enough 
for a flattened insect of the Phlaeophagus type to effect an easy entrance. 
The whole structure of the female cone of E. villosus and of one or two 
related species — also non-arborescent forms — differs in so many respects 
from the prevailing type seen in E. Gaffer, E. Lehmanni, E. latifrons, 
