976 Thoday and Ber ridge . — The Anatomy and Morphology of 
reduced in size, only three or four pairs of bracts being generally developed. 
The Alatae, however, the group in which numerous membranous bracts 
occur below the single fertile pair, is suggestive of an originally greater 
development than is found at present, which would be more comparable 
with the strobilus of Welwitschia with its numerous membranous bracts and 
axillary ovules. E. alata , Torreyana , &c., which have numerous bracts more 
or less loosely arranged and ovules which stand fairly free in the centre of 
the strobilus, are, we think, nearer the primitive form than the more reduced 
species. It is probable that more than a single whorl of bracts was 
originally fertile ; indeed in one cone of E. altissima small masses of 
abortive tissue suggestive of undeveloped sporangiophores were found 
in the axils of the bracts next below the fertile ones ; perhaps at the 
base of the strobilus there were male flowers as now in E. fragilis ^ var. 
campylopoda. 
The increase in thickness and succulence of the bracts of groups other 
than the Alatae is accompanied by their decrease in number and by greater 
pressure on the ovules. These no longer stand free in the centre of the 
strobilus, but are tightly enclosed by the subtending bracts, and the 
three well-marked wings, each with its vascular bundle characteristic of the 
ovules of the Alatae, become modified by pressure. The ovules become 
laterally flattened, the two lateral wings being retained while the median 
one is lost ; in E. fragilis and E. nebrodensis a small median wing with 
its vascular bundle is still present, but in E. distachya there is little trace 
of a median angle to the seed, and the median vascular bundle is hardly ever 
formed. 
In E. altissima the very thick and succulent fertile bracts are fused 
together and tightly enclose in a cup the single ovule which has finally 
resulted from fusion of the two ovules originally present. The seed is 
no longer winged, but is round and almost smooth except at the apex 
where three or four slightly projecting ribs or angles can be distinguished. 
C. The Female Flower. The ovule in Ephedra , like the male flower, is 
axillary in position, and perhaps as a consequence of this position it receives 
its bundles in the same manner as a vegetative axillary bud. Whether 
these facts can be regarded as proof that it is therefore the equivalent 
of a vegetative axillary bud is not easy to decide. 
From a study of Welwitschia one of us 1 was inclined to conclude that it 
was wisest to term the axes of both male and female flowers { sporangio- 
phores ’, but as has been said in the case of the male flower there is little to 
support this terminology, and the direct evidence as to the foliar nature of 
the flattened and bifid male sporangiophore in Ephedra , which is emphasized 
by the fern-like vernation of the organ in E. fragilis when in bud, is on the 
1 Sykes, 1910. 
