73 
Female ‘Flower ’ in Coniferae. 
leaf of the latter (this anterior leaf being twisted round 
through an angle of 18o°), in the Araucarieae (Fig. 2), where 
the seminiferous scale, bearing a single ovule, is obviously 
not a compound but a single organ, the scale consists solely of 
the anterior leaf or its sporangial representative, the first leaf- 
pair of the axillary bud being entirely absent. This is the 
explanation of the occurrence of a single sporangium in 
Araucarieae. The same explanation is, in all probability, 
also applicable to the case of the Podocarpeae, where but 
a single sporangium also occurs. In the Taxodineae the 
seminiferous scale may frequently consist of several parts, 
representing the fusion of more than three leaves, or their 
sporangial representatives, of the 
axillary bud. Abnormalities, either 
in this group or in the Cupressineae, 
are almost unknown. But, in sup¬ 
port of the view as to the origin of 
the seminiferous scale in the Taxo¬ 
dineae, Engelmann, in America, 
found a proliferated cone of Sequoia 
which clearly exhibited the com¬ 
pound nature of the scale, while 
Alex. Braun, in Taxodium , Crypto- 
meria , and Glyptostrobus , found an 
axillary bud replacing the scale. Although no abnormalities 
have ever been found to prove it, there can, nevertheless, be 
little doubt that in the Cupressineae, the seminiferous scale, 
which is almost completely fused with the bract, has the same 
origin as it has in the Abietineae. But a difficulty would 
seem to arise, owing to the presence in some species of 
Cupressus of great numbers of sporangia belonging to 
a single seminiferous scale, if the latter is to be interpreted 
as representing the fused, vegetatively-developed outer in¬ 
teguments of two sporangia. But the difficulty vanishes 
when confronted with the fact that in Hesperis was found 
a vegetatively-developed outer integument bearing several 
inner integuments or ovules, one on each vein (Fig. 7), and 
each corresponding to a lateral segment of the leaflet. 
Fig. 7. Vegetatively-developed 
outerintegument(< 7 .?W.)ofA^- 
peris , showing several inner 
integuments (sp) borne on the 
lateral veins(afterCelakovsk^). 
