1 74 Benson . — Telangium Scotti, a new Species of 
another. The margin also of the orifice of the micropyle is formed of 
a cup-shaped expansion which is seen to be drawn out at two points into 
long filiform appendages. A vascular bundle enters at the base of the 
ovule and splits into four branches.’ If this account were translated into 
the language of this new theory we should say that each of the four 
abortive integumental sporangia contains loose elongated cells in its upper 
part, and that their extreme apices are prolonged much as in Lag. 
fihysoides , only that they remain adherent in pairs. The other two species 
of Gnetopsis , G. trigona and G. hexago7ia , are known only as impressions, 
and show four or five tentacles around the apex 1 . 
If it should be contended that in the case of Lagenostoma and 
Gnetopsis this special development of the inner integument is merely 
of biological significance, I would point out that it is difficult to see then 
why this should also occur in a seed outtopped by interseminal bracts 
as e.g. Bennettites Morierei. Nor does this explain the form of the section 
of the seed — triangular, hexagonal, &c. — nor the radiating vertical walls 
dividing the integument into compartments. 
If, however, such internal evidence as I have brought forward appears 
inconclusive, it is satisfactory to find that there is a record in the literature 
of an exactly comparable transformation occurring in the sorus of a very 
ancient monostelic fern stock. 
I refer to the fact that Renault in his Autun Flora describes a specimen 
of Botryopteris sporangia in which a group was found to be surrounded by 
an envelope formed of sterile and highly modified sporangia 2 . Renault 
figures some of these sterile sporangia in his c Flore fossile d’Autun et 
d’Epinac.’ 
When we consider that on anatomical grounds it has long seemed 
probable that the Cycadofilices arose from some ancestral Filicinean group 
such as the Botryopterideae , we see that such a case as Renault cites 
is peculiarly significant in any discussion as to the phylogenetic origin 
of the integument of. the seed. Hence any further confirmation of Renault’s 
observation would lend a strong support to the new theory. 
I will now refer to a few analogous cases which lend a general 
support to the claim for the sterilization of certain sporangia in a sorus 
during the evolution of the Seed. 
In Azolla I believe most morphologists would admit that the micro- 
sporangial and megasporangial sori were originally similar, and that the 
megasporangial has gradually lost by abortion a number of sporangia, 
retaining only one. If the development of the megasporange in Azolla 
involved the total loss of its free sister sporangia, are we claiming too much 
1 Zeiller, Elements de Paleobotanique, p. 224. 
2 Renault, Bassin houiller d’Autun et d’fepinac. Flore Fossile, ii, p. 54. 
