53 
Female ‘ Flower' in Coniferae . 
receives its own bundle, and two upper bundles which become 
inverted, and pass each to one of the two ovules, which 
represent the bilobed first leaf of the axillary shoot. In 
Taxns , the female bud (primary shoot) forms in the axil of 
one of its leaves a secondary shoot bearing three pairs of 
bracts, of which the sixth is alone fertile. These bracts are 
arranged with a divergence of one-fourth or one-half, and 
are falsely decussate and arranged as if for the commence- 
ment of a two-fifths phyllotaxis. Two bundles leave the axis 
at the sixth and last bract, and both, becoming inversely 
orientated, enter the ovule, which represents the first leaf of 
an axillary shoot. The origin, orientation, and structure 
of its vascular system show that this is the true interpretation. 
The two opposite bundles of the wall of the ovule are 
concentric , the phloem occupying the centre.’ 
In Torreya the structure is the same, except that there are 
a greater number of fertile bracts, and that there is one further 
stage of branching than in Taxus. 
In the same year Sperk (66) issued an important work on 
the subject of Gymnospermy. He found a hermaphrodite 
cone of Larix with male organs at the base and female at 
the top. He regards the ovules as ovaries. The seminiferous 
scale is of foliar nature. In Cunninghamia , sometimes the 
ovule, sometimes the seminiferous scale is formed first; in 
a proliferated cone the bract had three distinct leaves in its 
axil, which were the three seminiferous scales ; between these 
latter and the bract was a long stalk thickened upwards, 
which perhaps represented a secondary axis. In Taxus 
parvifolia the outer ovular envelope is a continuation of 
the whorl of bracts below the ovule; the carpels are at 
first separate and distinct in a whorl, and later, by pressure 
of the bracts, become fused into a whole. In T. baccata the 
integument arises from the axis> and leaves a space between 
it and the nucellus. In Cupressus lusitanica the integuments 
were proliferated into leaves. In considering the case of 
Cryptomeria japonica he gives the following reasons why the 
inner scale cannot be a carpel:—‘(i) In young cones the ovary 
