Female Strobilus in Podocarpus. 
557 
P. nivalis. 
This species is a much branched erect or prostrate shrub, occurring in 
sub-alpine localities in New Zealand, from 2,000 to 5,000 ft. During a stay of 
four weeks at Mt. Cook, in the South Island, a serial collection of strobili was 
made, the species being very abundant about there. The material is in 
pollination stage, showing the breaking of nucellar tissue round the mega- 
spore and vacuolization of the latter, and is in usually good condition. 
The older shoots of this species seem to innovate, this year’s stro- 
bili occurring singly in the axils of the lower leaves of this year’s shoot 
(PL LI I, Fig. 65, strob .), whereas last year’s, containing young embryos, would 
be on the next lowest portion, separated by the scars of the bud scales. 
The fertile area on the young shoots is as well marked as in P. 
To tar a (see p. 552). 
The strobili consist of a short peduncle bearing two (Figs. 66 and 67) 
or three (Figs. 65 and 68) bracts, of which one (Figs. 65-7, 69, 70) or two 
(Fig. 68) may be fertile. Pilger ( 40 , p. 85) for this species, as for P. Totara, 
gives only two ‘ scale leaves ’ with one ovule, but the two ovules were as 
often seen as not present, as were also the three bracts (Figs. 65 and 68); 
the presence of the third is sometimes indicated at maturity (Fig. 69), but 
often all evidence is lost in the basal swelling and fusion. 
In P. nivalis the bracts, as usual in the Eupodocarps, are unmodified in 
the earliest stages (Figs. 66 and 67). It is on pollination that the bract 
bases begin to show distinct modification. 
In the oldest or young embryo stage, as in P. Hallii , about an equal 
number of examples were seen with unmodified bracts (Figs. 70 and 71), which 
in this species are suffused with red from the pollination stages and probably 
before, but there is no glaucous bloom. 
Where the bases do swell up they show the same colour and consistency 
so familiar to us in the Yew arils, and also characteristic of P. Totara and 
P. Hallii ; and, similarly, all trace of the third bracts, where present, is lost, 
the blades being reduced to mere points. 
PI. LIII, Fig. 81 is a photomicrograph of a section taken through the 
apex of the integument, which is enclosed in the base of the ovuliferous 
scale. Two bundles are shown in the scale, as yet hardly organized, the 
ovule being in the homogeneous nucellus stage. The lamina of the fertile 
bract is seen to the left, and that of the sterile one to the right. 
In this species the larger ovules were in the early embryo stage, with 
no cotyledons. The bract bases, however, were fully coloured and developed, 
as was the case with P. Totara (PI. LI, Fig. 59) in the pre- fertilization stage, 
and P. Hallii (Fig. 63), in which the embryo was a little more advanced. 
In other instances the bracts remained unmodified (PI. LII, Figs. 70 and 71), 
