The Anatomy and Morphology of the Inflorescences 
and Flowers of Ephedra. 
BY 
MARY G. THODAY (SYKES), 
Girton College , Fellow of Newnham College , Cambridge , and Honorary Research Fellow in the 
University of Manchester , 
AND 
EMILY M. BERRIDGE, B.Sc., F.L.S. 
With Plate LXXXV and twenty-one Figures in the Text. 
W E undertook this investigation because it seemed to us that the 
genus Ephedra required re-examination for the sake of comparison 
with recent work on the other genera of the Gnetales. 
The material on which our work is based is largely supplied from 
collections, embedded material, and slides previously made by one of us for 
other work on the embryology of the genus , 1 and includes four species, 
Ephedra altissima , E. distachya , E.fragilis, and E. nebrodensis. Additional 
inflorescences of E. altissima in various stages were obtained from the 
Manchester University Botanical Laboratory, and herbarium material ol 
various other species, E. alata , E. Torreyana , E. trifur ca , and others, was 
supplied from the Manchester University Herbarium. 
I. General Morphology of the Inflorescences. 2 
The male inflorescence in Ephedra consists of an axis arising in the 
axil of one of the ordinary leaves, and often dichasially branched, bearing 
generally one terminal and two lateral strobili (Fig. i, PI. LXXXV). The 
bracts at the point of branching have acute apices, like those in a similar 
position in Welwitschia. 
In E. distachya , fragilis , nebrodensis , and antisyphilitic a? &c., the 
female inflorescence axis also springs directly from the axil of a leaf on the 
1 Berridge and Sanday : Oogenesis and Embryogeny in Ephedra distachya. New Phyt., vi. 1907. 
2 Strasburger, 1872, pp. 76 ff. and 132 ff . ; Land, 1904. 
3 Coulter and Chamberlain, 1901, p. 372. In this and several other species the peduncle is so 
short that the strobilus appears to be sessile in the axil of the bract. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXVI, No. CIV. October, 1912.] 
3 * 
