572 
APPENDIX. [. Botany of Terra Australis, 
argument in support of the view now taken of the nature of the parts, but 
also as in some degree again approximating Casuarina to Conferee, with 
which it was formerly associated. 
The outer coat of the seed or caryopsis of Casuarina consists of a 
very fine membrane, of which the terminal wing is entirely composed; 
between this membrane and the crustaceous integument of the seed there 
exists a stratum of spiral vessels, which Labillardiere, not having dis- 
tinctly seen, has described as an “ integumentum arachnoideum and 
within the crustaceous integument there is a thin proper membrane closely 
applied to the Embryo, which the same author has entirely overlooked. 
The existence of spiral vessels, particularly in such quantity, and, as far as 
can be determined in the dried specimens, unaccompanied by other vessels, 
is a structure at least very unusual in the integuments of a seed or cary- 
opsis, in which they are very seldom at all visible, and have nc\er, I 
believe, been observed in such abundance as in this genus, in all whose 
species they are equally obvious. 
CONIFERAB * The structure of the female parts of fructification in 
Conifer* having, till very lately, been so little understood ; and certain facts 
concerning it being still unpublished, I shall prefix a few observations on 
this subject to the remarks I have to offer on the Australian part of the 
order. 
In the late essays of Mirbel and Schoubert on Conferee f that part of 
the female fructification which had previously been considered as the Pistil- 
lum, having a perforated style, is described as a peculiar organ inclosing 
the ovarium, and in most cases also the stigma. This organ, which they 
have named Cupula, they regard as more analogous to an involucrum than 
to a perianthium, which, according to them, also exists, cohering, how- 
ever, with the body of the ovarium. Without absolutely adopting this latter 
part of the ir statement, it appears to me that impregnation really takes 
place in the manner these authors describe. Their principal argument 
is derived from the genus Ephedra, in which both the stigma and a con- 
siderable part of the style project beyond this cupula, without cohering 
with its aperture. In further confirmation of their opinion it may be 
f Now. Bulletin des scien. 3. p. 73, 85. et. 121. 
* Juss. gen. 411. 
