262 
Robertson . — Some Points in the 
Fig. 17, A and B, shows an older cone and seed, while Fig. 18 represents 
a radial section of the base of such a seed. The arillus is now a conspicuous 
papery cup. The walls of the fibrous layer have increased to an enormous 
thickness, and each cell contains a conspicuous crystal (Fig. si, A and b). 
The elements composing the tracheal platform have very characteristic 
Taxinean sculpturing (Fig. so). Between the tracheal platform and the 
megaspore is a palisade of long cells with bordered pits (Fig. 19). Un- 
fortunately the preservation of the female cones was too poor and the 
stages were too few to allow the events within the embryo sac to be 
followed. Sections of the nucellus of cones gathered two or three months 
after pollination, such as those shown in Fig. ss, often reveal a small pear- 
shaped embryo deeply embedded in the endosperm (Fig. S3). The 
megaspore-membrane at this stage is remarkably clear (Fig. S4). 
B. The male cone. 
The material sent by Dr. Cockayne included three or four male cones 
gathered just as they were shedding their pollen (Fig. 26). Each sporophyll 
bears two pollen-sacs on its underside. Sections of a cone which had not 
dehisced revealed the fact that the ripe pollen-grain was of the Podocarpoid 
type 1 , — winged and containing four nuclei (Fig. S7). Curiously enough, 
two of the cones sent showed abnormalities. One was hermaphrodite, 
bearing an ovule at the base succeeded by stamens (Fig. 25), while in 
a second the axis, instead of being simple, was branched at a point two-thirds 
from its base. 
IV. The Affinities of Phyllocladus. 
Strasburger (Die Coniferen und die Gnetaceen, 1872) places Phyllo- 
cladus in the subdivision Podocarpeae of the Taxaceae, but regards it 
as coming nearer to the Taxeae (Taxus, Torreya, Cephalotaxus, and 
Ginkgo) than do the other members of the same subdivision. Pilger 
(Taxaceae, 1903) consigns Phyllocladus to the separate group Phyllo- 
cladoideae, intermediate between Podocarpoideae and Taxoideae. The 
difference between these two positions is not a radical one, but my observa- 
tions make me feel that the earlier view is perhaps the more expressive. 
The affinity with the Podocarps is undoubtedly the stronger, though there 
are distinct indications of a Taxoidean relationship as well. 
The main points in which Phyllocladus resembles the Podocarpoideae 
and differs from the Taxoideae are as follows :• — 
1. Each carpel bears a single ovide. In the Taxoideae each carpel 
is bi-ovulate. 
1 W. C. Coker, The Gametophytes and Embryo of Podocarpus. Bot. Gaz., vol. xxxiii, 1902, 
p. 89. 
