74 Worsdell.—The Structure of the 
The female sporophylls of Coniferae belong to branches 
of a higher grade than those bearing the male sporophylls. 
The male sporophyll corresponds to the bract subtending the 
axillary shoot (now represented solely by the seminiferous 
scale), which latter bears the female sporophylls, i.e. their 
sporangial representatives. That this represents the real 
relationship is shown by those abnormalities in which the 
‘ bracts ’ bear pollen-sacs on their lower surface, when the 
seminiferous scale, or female part of the flower, tends to 
disappear, and this generally in the lower part of the cone, 
whereas in the upper part the female parts develop in the 
normal way and the bracts bear no pollen-sacs. The mon- 
axial cones were originally hermaphrodite, like the strobili 
of Selaginella , or the flowers of most Angiosperms 1 . 
The real relationships, as they are regarded by the author, 
may be stated thus:—the female inflorescence of the Coniferae 
is equivalent to the axillary brachyblast of Ginkgo , and the 
main axis of Cycads. In the Taxeae the inflorescence consists 
of a primary axis bearing a secondary axis (the ‘ flower ’) in 
an axillary position ; this ‘ flower ’ is unique among Conifers 
from the fact that, like the Cycads, it bears a number of sterile 
bracts in its lower portion ; the sporangium has become shifted 
from its ordinary lateral position, into one purely terminal 
to the axis, the sporangium itself being the sole representative 
of the sporophyll which was the tippermost appendage of the 
axis. This ‘ flower 5 is exactly equivalent to that of Ginkgo. 
1 Von Mohl observed a highly interesting case in an androgynous cone of Picea 
alba, Link, which bore reduced and sterile seminiferous scales in the axils of 
bracts, one of which latter bore two pollen-sacs on its lower surface, while on its 
upper surface appeared two wing-shaped projections, one on each side at the base, 
but nearer the upper than the lower side, which, in mode of adherence and 
direction, greatly resembled sporangia, and are in fact the sporangial leaf-segments 
of the sporophyll. So that this would, therefore, be a hermaphrodite scale, and 
possibly represents what would have been the original structure of the female 
inflorescence when the ‘ bracts ’ bore the sporangia, and no axillary shoots were 
developed , these latter appearing later, and themselves subsequently becoming 
modified into the present structure. These sporangia, from their position on 
a sporophyll, and having no seminiferous scale attached to them, must neces¬ 
sarily be holochlamydeous, like the sporangium of Cephalotaxus , and not mono- 
chlamydeous like that of the Abietineae. 
