66 
Worsdell .— The Structure of the 
vegetable world, that it is not likely to find favour with 
many botanists. 
Penzig (109), in his ‘ Pflanzen-Teratologie 5 of 1894, supports, 
with great enthusiasm, the position of Delpino. This latter 
author considers the carpels of Conifers as consisting of 
three parts, of which the middle part forms the bract, while 
the two lateral lobes bend inwards and fuse together by 
their margins to form the seminiferous scale, bearing the 
seeds (Fig. 6). When an axillary shoot appears, it separates 
S P' 
Fig. 5. Diagram showing the seminiferous 
scale hc(ss ) and the hypothetical missing 
half of the cladode (he); b = bract; 
ph = phloem; x = xylem; ax 1 = primary 
axis of cone. 
Fig. 6. Diagram of bract, 
showing its two basal lobes 
involuted and fused to¬ 
gether to form the semini¬ 
ferous scale (ss ): b ^ bract ; 
sp = sporangia. 
the two fused lateral lobes of the carpel, which bend back 
again and assume their former lateral position. When the 
shoot arises at the same level as, or between, the seminiferous 
scale and the bract, the two lobes come to have their ventral 
surfaces directed towards each other. But when the axillary 
shoot arises between the seminiferous scale and the axis of the 
cone , the two placental lobes have their dorsal sides directed 
towards the axillary shoot; a fact which, says Penzig, is 
not explicable on the Braun theory (that the scale represents 
the two first leaves of the axillary shoot), but is quite easily 
