6y 
Female ‘ Flower' in Coniferae . 
so on that of Delpino. That the lobes, as the metamorphosis 
proceeds, become more leaf-like, is only in accord with their 
foliar nature. When, by elongation of the axillary shoot, 
the two lobes are carried up by it, it appears as if they were 
its own appendages; but they are in reality, like the bract, 
members of the axis of the cone, receiving their bundles 
directly from it. The two medianly-placed scales of the 
axillary shoot are to be looked upon as its first-formed leaves, 
their antero-posterior position being explainable from the 
fact that they could not occupy the normal transverse posi¬ 
tion, for this is taken up by the placental lobes. He (Penzig) 
thinks the phenomenon observed by Velenovsky in a Larch- 
cone of an axillary shoot bearing, besides the two fleshy 
placental lobes, five other fleshy ovule-bearing scales, speaks 
strongly in favour of Braun’s theory. But he has previously 
shown how a specific metamorphosis may be determined by 
adjoining organs. In Antirrhinum the anterior stamens 
adjoining the petals in double flowers often acquire the 
form of the lobes of the lower lip, while the upper stamens 
acquire the form of the upper lip of the corolla ; the two 
posterior stamens in Orchids, when they are actually present, 
acquire the form and colour of the labellum because they 
adjoin the latter. He attributes these cases to a wandering 
of the specific structural substances into the neighbouring 
organs. In the same way he explains the above case of 
the Larch; the special substances intended for the placental 
lobes have wandered into the axillary shoot and influenced its 
appendages in the same way as the lobes. The transforma¬ 
tion of foliage-leaves into sexual organs is not uncommon 
in Coniferae. 
Delpino’s theory also enables us to understand how (as in 
Araucaria brasiliana , A. Rich, Pice a excelsa , Link, Tsuga 
canadensis , Carr.), the seminiferous scale splits into two lobes 
without the appearance of an axillary shoot. 
Noll (108) in 1894 examined proliferated cones of the 
Larch, and found the most gradual and continuous series of 
transitional forms between the seminiferous scale and an 
