69 
Female ‘Flower ’ m Coniferae. 
He strongly criticizes the theory of the abnormalities pro¬ 
posed by Strasburger, who regards the transformation of the 
disk or flattened axis (for such he considers the seminiferous 
scale to be) into the two first appendages and the anterior 
leaf of the axillary bud as the result of the struggle carried 
on between two opposing forces, viz. that of the vegetative 
development of a bud and that of the normal formation of 
reproductive organs. This position Celakovsky shows to 
be perfectly untenable ; for it is impossible for an organ 
belonging to one morphological category, such as an axis or 
disk, to become transformed into those belonging to another 
category, such as the foliar appendages of an axis. 
Eichler’s theory meets with no better fate at his hands. 
This author’s explanation of the abnormalities was this: 
that the pressure exercised by the axillary bud arising between 
the seminiferous scale and the axis of the cone, was the 
agency responsible for the splitting of the scale into two 
parts and the wide separation of these latter into the posi¬ 
tions which they occupy, one on either side of the axillary 
bud. But this theory, he says, will not hold good when it is 
found that the splitting of the scale frequently occurs when 
the axillary bud is suppressed or exceedingly reduced, and 
also when the latter arises on the anterior side of the semi¬ 
niferous scale, a fact which is fatal to Eichler’s placental or 
emergence-theory, which latter is, however, best refuted by 
the continuous, gradual transitions which occur in the abnor¬ 
malities between the seminiferous scale and the first leaf-pair 
plus the anterio leaf of the axillary bud. And further, if 
this view of Eichler’s be correct, what has become, he asks, 
of the first transverse leaf-pair of the bud, which should 
occupy the position taken up by the separated parts of the 
seminiferous scale? 
If the view that the ovule is a flower be correct, he reasons, 
then that organ ought, occasionally, in the retrograde meta¬ 
morphoses, to develop vegetatively like the seminiferous 
scale ; which, however, it never does. 
For the solution of such problems as the nature of the 
