Botany.] 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
539 
Obs. III . — On the Structure of the Unimpregnated 
OvuLUM m Phcenogamous Plants. 
The description which I have given of the Ovulum of 
Kingia, though essentially different from the accounts hi- 
therto published of that organ before fecundation, in reality 
agrees with its ordinary structure in Phaenogamous plants. 
I shall endeavour to establish these two points ; namely, 
the agreement of this description with the usual structure 
of the Ovulum, and its essential difference from the accounts 
of other observers, as briefly as possible at present; in- 
tending hereafter to treat the subject at greater length, and 
also with other views. 
I have formerly more than once * adverted to the struc- 
ture of the Ovulum, chiefly as to the indications it affords, 
even before fecundation, of the place and direction of the 
future Embryo. These remarks, however, which were cer- 
tainly very brief, seem entirely to have escaped the notice of 
those authors who have since written on the same subject. 
In the Botanical Appendix to the account of Captain 
Flinders’ Voyage, published in 1814, the following de- 
scription of the Ovulum of Cephalotus follicularis is given : 
“ Ovulum erectum, intra testam membranaceam continens 
sacculum pendulum, magnitudine cavitatis testae,” and in 
reference to this description, I have in the same place 
remarked that, “ from the structure of the Ovulum, even in 
the unimpregnated state, I entertain no doubt that the radicle 
of the Embryo points to the umbilicus f.” 
My attention had been first directed to this subject in 
1809, in consequence of the opinion I had then formed of 
* Flinders’ Voy. ii. p. 601, and Linn. Soc. Transac. xii. p. 136. 
t Flinders’ Foy. loc. cit. 
