Reproductive Structures in the Podocarpineae . 47 
the base of the ovule from the chalazal complex. In the general disposition 
of the vascular supply to its ovule, P. vitiensis is intermediate between 
P. elatus and P. ferrugineus. 
The only other species of Podocarpus under investigation, P. dacry - 
dioides , is a member of the section Dacrycarpus , which is distinguished 
from the rest of its genus by the fact that the bract is fused to the dorsal 
face of the ovule. The cone is very much reduced and its short thick axis, 
becoming fleshy at maturity, bears two opposite bracts, in the axil of one of 
which and adnate to it is the inverted ovule (Figs. 12, 13,and 14; Diagram4,A). 
The vascular cylinder of the axis gives off a strand to each of the two bracts 
Diagram 4. Podocarpus dacrydioides. A, vertical section through strobilus ; b-f, successive 
transverse sections from receptaculum to chalaza. 
(Diagram 4, B and c), and the two large bundles which remain approach each 
other, xylem outward, and enter the base of the epimatium (Diagram 4, D). 
At first these two lie near the bract bundle (Diagram 4, e), but they gradually 
diverge, and on approaching the chalaza separate rapidly, passing across 
the ovule, one on either side, to its ventral face (Diagram 4, f). Here they 
again converge, send downward a few weak bundles, and then pass upward 
a little way before dying out. The bract bundle disappears near the end 
of the bract, which in the young cone projects some distance beyond the 
ovule (Figs. 13 and 14) and is readily distinguishable from it, but which at 
maturity is so intimately fused with the leathery epimatium as to be almost 
