47 
Female ‘Flower ’ in Coniferae. 
as two papillae, so that there is just as much reason in this 
case for considering it an integument, The following are his 
main conclusions:— s The female flower is either terminal or 
placed in the axil of a bract or a leaf; but it is always borne 
by an axis and never by a bract. But the form of the axis is 
very variable, as is characteristic of receptacular organs. The 
flower, as Mirbel and Spach also thought, is not gymno- 
spermous, but possesses an ovary of two carpels, without 
floral envelopes, containing an orthotropous and erect ovule 
on a basilar placenta. The cupule, of variable consistence 
and shape, surrounding this ovary, which in several genera 
has received the name of aril, is a late production, although 
it arises previous to fertilization, and is of the nature of 
a disk/ 
Baillon will always be regarded as the champion of the 
developmental theory. 
Caspary (53) maintained, with Braun, from the fact that he 
found buds in the axils of the bracts, having the two halves of 
the seminiferous scale as lateral appendages, that the semini¬ 
ferous scale represented, in reality, the two first leaves of 
a vegetative bud, sometimes called ‘ the cotyledons of the 
branch 5 (Fig. 3), which were fused by their anterior or 
external margins. Of this view of the matter there will be 
more to say further on. 
In 1864 the Italian botanist, Parlatore (60), gave a valuable 
and interesting contribution to our knowledge of the structure 
of the female organs in various genera. He considers the 
seminiferous scale to represent a shortened axis in the axil 
of the bract with fused and broadened leaves. The fact that 
it is often bifid, emarginate, notched, &c., proves its compound 
nature. The seminiferous scale represents the leaves of the 
axillary axis, which is limited to a single point at the base of 
the scale. In a cone of Pinus Lemoniana in the Chiswick 
Gardens, he observed the ordinary short shoots or brachy- 
blasts, each with its two needles, springing from the axil of 
every alternate bract in place of the seminiferous scale. He 
upholds throughout the ovarian theory; the ovule being for 
