CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
143 
both of which are thin and membranaceous; the outer one (the 
testa) is of a darker colour, but paler and diaphanous in its 
upper free moiety, while its lower half is agglutinated to the 
inner integument and attached by a thickened and almost stipi- 
tate chalaza, which is here confounded with the hilum : it is 
reticulated and devoid of vessels, is shorter than the inner in- 
tegument (tegmen), which it closely embraces, its mouth being 
quite unclosed. The tegmen, though free in its upper moiety 
and partly covered by the free portion of the testa, is conical 
and much thickened in that part, very opake and white, and 
often corrugated, being closed in its somewhat attenuated apex 
by a globular reddish gland (“tuberculus stigmaticus,^’ Rich.), 
from the concave centre of whieh rises the tubular style-like 
process before mentioned, which, after traversing the vacant 
portion of the cell, passes through the foramen of the pericarp, 
and generally extends heyond it to a distanee of nearly half its 
length ; this process, called a “ tubillus,^’ is of the same texture 
and colour as the upper portion of the tegmen, and is similarly 
retieulated ; so that no doubt can exist that it is an extension of 
the mouth of that integument, but closed by the formation of a 
gland at the usual plaee of the mieropyle : the tubillus beyond 
this is hollow for its whole length, its apex being open and more 
or less unequally two-lipped. The albumen fills the tegmen, is 
fleshy, compressed, plano-convex, rounded at its base, but gra- 
dually attenuated towards its apex, where it is slender, and 
sometimes extends beyond the radicle. The enclosed embryo is 
nearly the length of the albumen, its lower moiety consisting of 
two compressed cotyledons with nearly straight sides, their faces 
being parallel to the flat side of the pericarp and to the lobes of 
the involucel : the radiele, which points to the summit of the 
carpel, is nearly as long as the eotyledons, but only a quarter of 
their breadth, being terete, its outer or epirhizal portion being 
white and opake, while its internal or neorhizal part is fleshy, 
more pointed, apparently of the same eolour and texture as the 
cotyledons, with whieh it seems continuous ; the epirhizal por- 
tion is more cellular, like a distinet envelope, often extending 
heyond the apex of the neorhiza, which is the growing-point of 
the future root. In the seed of some species of Ephedra, where 
the summit of the inner integument below the micropylar gland 
is greatly attenuated, and often so mueh corrugated that it can 
be further lengthened by force, the upper portion of the albumen 
becomes also attenuated, and as it extends beyond the point of 
the radicle, and contraets an adherence with the gland, it looks 
almost like a short suspensor ; but its texture shows that it is 
only a continuation of the albuminous mass, there being no 
trace of anything analogous to the suspensor described by Gau- 
