the Embryos and Seedlings of the Cactaceae. 425 
dieser Formen auf ziemlich gleicher Entwickelungsstufe 
abzeichnete.’ 
The evidence given in this paper shows that these deduc- 
tions of Pfeiffer’s are incorrect, but they have doubtless had 
weight with other systematists ; and morphologists, for the 
other reason given, have hardly yet taken them up. 
The first writer to describe and figure seedlings of this 
family was De Candolle, who in 1827 gave a drawing ( { made 
in 1 800 ’) of a seedling of Cactus Melocactus ( Melocactus com- 
munis ), which unhappily contains a morphological error, as 
pointed out by Miquel in 1839. From that time on to the 
present, figures and descriptions have from time to time 
appeared, though in no great abundance, of which I need 
mention here only the more important, more especially since 
I have attempted to enumerate all these figures in the special 
part of this paper. 
The earliest account of the process of germination in 
Cactaceae that I have found was given in 1836 by Zuccarini, 
who described it correctly in Mamillaria and Echinocactus . 
In the next year Pfeiffer figured and described several forms, 
and briefly discussed their germination in the passage 
I have quoted above, to which he added other remarks of less 
importance. Labouret, in 1858, devoted five and a half pages 
to the description of the germination of eleven species, but 
gave no figures. Klebs, in his work on Germination in 1885, 
gave a few observations upon this family. The various 
papers of George Engelmann figure many embryos as taken 
from the seed, but rarely figure the seedlings. Irmisch, in his 
paper on Rhip satis Cassytka , has given the most satisfactory 
account of the germination of the seedlings of a species of this 
family which we possess. Goebel has given the fullest 
account of the seedlings which has yet appeared, including 
several of the best figures yet published, and a discussion of 
their ecologic and phylogenetic significance. Lubbock has 
described and figured several species. Schumann has said 
but little upon this phase of a subject on which he is such an 
authoritative writer. In a short paper by Mr. C. F. Maxwell 
G g 2 
