‘ Flowers ’ of Cephalotaxus. 639 
proceed to demonstrate the morphology and homologies of the 
flowers as indicated by him. 
Undoubtedly, the nearest allies of Cephalotaxus are Taxus , 
Torreya , Phyllocladus , and Ginkgo ; of these Ginkgo and 
Phyllocladus almost certainly stand nearest to our genus. 
Each axis placed axillary to a bract of a male inflorescence 
is the homologue of the axis in Ginkgo and Phyllocladus , 
standing singly and alone in the axil of a scale-leaf or foliage- 
leaf of the brachyblast or short shoot ; this brachyblast is, 
therefore, probably homologous with the single inflorescence 
of Cephalotaxus , the difference from Ginkgo lying in the fact 
that in this latter genus the shoot possesses a vegetative apical 
bud and produces foliage- as well as scale-leaves, whereas in 
Cephalotaxus it only bears bracts. In Taxus and Torreya the 
male flowers also stand singly in the axils of the scale-leaves 
of short branches ; unlike Ginkgo and Cephalotaxus , the axis 
of each flower of the two former genera bears several pairs of 
decussate bracts or sterile sporophylls ; in Phyllocladus a single 
such bract is present below the sporophylls. 
The short stalks which bear the pollen-sacs are sporophylls 
of the primitive radially-symmetrical type, but represent 
a slight advance on the most primitive type of all represented 
by the case of Cordaites , in which the sacs are borne terminally 
on the radially-constructed sporophyll, for in Cephalotaxus and 
Ginkgo , Torreya , and Phyllocladus the sacs are subterminal 
and pendulous, owing to a slight prolongation of the axis 
of the sporophyll, between and beyond the sacs, into a small 
protuberance ; this condition of things is very interesting, for 
it marks an intermediate, transitional stage between the most 
primitive type of sporophyll (as seen in Cordaites , or, to take 
an instance from the Cycadales themselves, in Bennettites *) 
to that of Taxus , where the extended terminal portion of the 
sporophyll has become enlarged and flattened out into a very 
1 Worsdell, c The Affinities of the Mesozoic Fossil, Bennettites Gibsonianus 
Carr.’ Ann. Bot., vol. xiv, September, 1900. 
D. H. Scott, Studies in Fossil Botany, Figs. 147, 148, pp. 455, 456, 1900. 
