<974 T ho day and Ber ridge . — The Anatomy and Morphology of 
of the crescentic mass supply the two halves of the bifid antherophore. 
In each half in E. distachya and E. nebrodensis , the bundle branches into 
two and then again into four, the eight bundles thus formed supplying the 
two groups of four synangia ; each bundle ends in a mass of transfusion 
tracheides 1 in the base of the septum separating the two loculi of each 
synangium (Text-fig. XIX). 
In most of the other species also the two main bundles branch quite 
early into a number of bundles corresponding with the number of synangia 
borne on the antherophore, but in E. fragilis they remain unbranched 
almost up to the level of insertion of the synangia, before they each divide 
up to form four traces supplying the four synangia. 
III. Morphological Considerations. 
A. The Male Flower. In Ephedra the male flower axis is axillary, 
and it receives its vascular supply like an axillary bud ; it bears two leafy 
appendages and a bifid antherophore. It therefore has the characteristics of 
an axillary shoot. The appendages are not however in the same plane as the 
first pair of leaves of a normal axillary shoot, but at right angles to it, that 
is in the position of the second pair of leaves ; and where a vascular supply is 
present it corroborates this view : while the two halves of the antherophore 
are in the plane of the first or third pairs of leaves. Arber and Parkin 2 
have adopted the view that the parts corresponding to the first pair of 
leaves are missing, and the second and third only are represented. The 
antherophore, they think, consists of two members originally standing 
laterally, but now by reduction of the flower and by fusion brought into 
a median position. 
The male flower then becomes a very reduced strobilus, consisting of 
an axis bearing two pairs of appendages, the antherophore itself being 
a disc consisting of two fused sporophylls. Whether or no this view be 
the correct one, it does at any rate appear fairly clear, that whatever be the 
nature of the axis on which it stands, the antherophore is of foliar nature 3 : 
its broadened lamina in the species in which it is best developed, and 
especially its circinnate vernation in E. fragilis (Text-fig. 12), both combine 
to emphasize its leaf-like character: further, it is found that the two halves 
of the antherophore receive their bundles in the same manner as do the 
first and third pair of leaves of an axillary shoot, each half receiving at its 
base a contribution both from one of the lateral traces and from the median 
trace. 
In view of the rapidly accumulating evidence 4 suggesting that the 
1 Cf. Welwitschia antherophore; Sykes, 1910. 
2 Arber and Parkin, 1908, p. 499. 
3 Coulter and Chamberlain assume it to be axial ; 1910, p. 471. 
4 Arber and Parkin, 1908; Sykes, 1910; Berridge, 1911 ; Thoday (Sykes), 1911. 
