Female ‘Flower ’ in Coniferae. 65 
Masters’ (105) position was in 1884 that of Eichler, viz. 
that the seminiferous scale is an excrescence of the bract; 
this is stated in a paper on the comparative morphology of 
Sciadopitys. In this paper he makes the statement that 
‘the adult seed-scale of Sciadopitys and of Abietineae occu¬ 
pies the same apparent position with regard to the bract 
that the “ needle ” of Sciadopitys and the fascicle of “ needles ” 
of Pinus (with its sheath) do respectively to the true leaf.’ 
From the consideration of an abnormality in which the 
‘ needle ’ was deeply forked and from the fork sprung 
a short axis bearing a whorl of ‘needles,’ he thinks the 
4 needle ’ is of axial not of foliar nature. But this pheno¬ 
menon, it seems to me, might also be interpreted as the result 
of the elongation of the otherwise suppressed or shortened 
axis of the brachyblast bearing the two leaves fused by 
their posterior margins, causing a separation of the latter, 
while the axis remained for part of its length fused with one 
of its two leaves , and after becoming free higher up, produced 
fresh leaves. In his paper of 1891, he puts forward a view 
of the seminiferous scale which, amongst all those which 
occupy our attention, has at least the distinction of being 
unique. I give his own words :—‘ Reverting to Casimir de 
Candolle’s “ Theorie de la Feuille” . . . this botanist com¬ 
pares the leaf to an axis, the upper half of whose vascular 
system is abortive or undeveloped, for which reason the 
xylem is towards the upper or inner surface, the phloem 
towards the lower. Apply a similar explanation to the 
fruit-scale, and the position of xylem and phloem becomes 
intelligible. According to this view the fruit-scale is an 
enation, either from the bract or from the axis, it is im¬ 
material which, of the nature of a cladode or modified shoot. 
The lower or outer portion of this branch or cladode is 
abortive, and consequently the xylem is towards the lower 
or outer, the phloem towards the upper or inner surface ’ 
(Fig. 5 )* This view, however, appears so incongruous and in¬ 
comprehensible, and offers for our contemplation a structure 
so anomalous, and so foreign to all other divisions of the 
F 
