A Theory of the Strobilus in Archegoniate 
Plants \ 
BY 
F. O. BOWER, D.Sc., F.R.S. 
Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow. 
I N previous communications to the Royal Society, to the 
British Association, and to the Annals of Botany, I have 
taken opportunity to state in part the views to which I have 
been led by the study of spore-producing members. Till 
now, however, I have not attempted to put into a comprehen- 
sive and connected form the chain of ideas which observation 
and comparison have suggested. I shall endeavour to state 
it now with all possible brevity. 
I assume, for the purposes of this argument, that Hofmeister’s 
general conclusions will be accepted : that antithetic alternation 
was constant throughout the evolution of archegoniate plants, 
and that the sporophyte has been the result of elaboration of 
the zygote. There is one further point on which a clear 
understanding is necessary from the outset of the discussion : 
in all those plants which show antithetic alternation, with 
the exception of a few aposporous forms which I regard as 
abnormal, spore-production is a constantly recurring event. 
A comparison of the Confervoideae and of the simpler 
Bryophyta shows that spore-production was the first office 
of the sporophyte, and in the simplest types it is seen to 
1 Read before Section D of the British Association at Oxford, August 1894. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. VIII. No. XXXI. September, 1894.] 
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