The Morphology of the Reproductive Structures 
in the Podocarpineae. 1 
BY 
EDMUND W. SINNOTT. 
With Plates V-IX and nine Diagrams in the Text. 
T HE construction of a natural classification for the Coniferales, based 
upon comparative studies among its many living and fossil forms, has 
been the object of all recent morphological investigations which have dealt 
with members of the group. A wealth of new facts concerning this great 
plant order has consequently been added to our knowledge, and although 
in most of its families at least the main outlines of the anatomy of the 
sporophyte and of the structure and development of the gametophytes are 
now understood, yet among certain groups so little has been done that, 
with regard to almost everything but external features, comparative ignorance 
still prevails. 
This is especially true in the case of the Podocarpineae, an important 
and clearly defined family, the natural position and relationships of which 
have been the cause of much discussion and difference of opinion among 
botanists. 
Its members belong predominantly to the Southern Hemisphere, and 
are represented north of the Equator by only a few species in southern and 
eastern Asia and the West Indies. The family includes six genera : 
Podocarpus , of sixty species, distributed throughout most of the Southern 
Hemisphere and in India, China, Japan, and the West Indies ; Dacrydium , 
of sixteen species, from Australasia, the East Indies, and southern Asia ; 
Saxegothea , monotypic, from the Andes ; Microcachrys , also monotypic, 
from Tasmania ; Pherosphaera , of two species, from Australia ; and Phyllo- 
cladusy of five species, from New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Philippine 
Islands. 
The almost entire restriction of the Podocarpineae to the Southern 
Hemisphere doubtless explains the neglect accorded them at the hands of 
the morphologists, who up to the present have had little but fragmentary 
and poorly preserved material with which to work. Our knowledge of the 
1 Contributions from the Phanerogamic Laboratories of Harvard University, No. 53. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol, XXVII, No. CV. January, 1913J 
