Gnetum Gnemon, with Notes on Gnetum funicular e. 43 
in section. Minute examination of the top part of this beak-like structure 
shows its irregular outer surface corresponding to the irregular inner 
surface of the cavity (g) from which it was torn ; it i,s heavily lignified 
throughout, and the lignification extends (Text-fig. 2 C) down to the level 
opposite the nucellar tip, below which the inner integument is parenchyma- 
tous. The tip of the middle covering is also seen in this figure with its 
stony inner layer (st) and soft expanded outer layer (sk). 
Text-fig. 3 represents a longitudinal section of another seed in which 
the tip of the micropylar tube 
reached the surface of the 
outer covering. Below the 
open portion of the tube with 
its thickened cuticularized lin- 
ing and upwardly directed 
short corky flange, there is the 
widened part fused to the outer 
covering. In this seed a strand 
composed of a few of the 
thickened cuticularized cells 
forming the original lining of 
the micropylar tube could be 
traced down the middle of the 
solid portion ; lower down, this 
widened as the part of the 
tube at an early stage more 
widely open, but now filled 
with papillae, is approached. 
A few thylose-like papillae are 
still left, unlike the other seed 
in which they had all been 
torn out by the breaking away 
of the rest of the tube. 
Cross-sections show even 
more clearly that what has 
been torn away is the solid 
closing rod of papillae formed from the epidermal lining of the tube, 
and with it some of the sub-epidermal layers, the part of the wall formed 
by subdivision of the outer layers being left. In a series of transverse 
sections, taken from above downward, through another mature seed very 
like the last, the first few sections cut through the outer covering with its 
round excentric lumen, limited by a definite epidermis, and with the free 
micropylar tube projecting through it (Photo 7, PI. I). The latter is com- 
posed entirely of thickened cells v/ith a strongly cuticularized internal 
Text-fig. 3. The apex of another mature seed of 
Gnetum Gnemon. The free upward flange ( Af ) is much 
smaller than in Text-fig. 2, and the papillate region (p) 
more clearly seen. The free part of the micropylar tube 
( m.t .) is shorter and comes to the surface of the outermost 
covering (c). Bf \ and G as in Fig. 2 D. 
