77 
Female ‘ Flower' in Coni ferae. 
Van Tieghem : Ovule. 
Sperk : Ovary. 
Braun, A.: Ovule. 
Strasburger: Ovary (earlier view); ovule (later view). 
Eichler: Ovule. 
Celakovsky : Ovule (representing the entire sporophyll). 
It will thus be seen how various are the theories which 
have from time to time been put forward on this subject. It 
will be said by many that the problems connected with it 
remain still unsolved, but it seems to me that their solution 
depends very largely on the individual insight of each one, 
as to how he interprets facts placed before him. Personally, 
I incline strongly to the views put forth by Celakovsky, the 
latest author who has written upon the subject. They are 
views which, in their interpretation of organs, appear the least 
to clash with our modern morphological conceptions, and 
which, from their breadth of view and comprehensiveness, 
appeal forcibly to the scientific sense. It seems to me that 
the evidence accruing from the abnormalities, in which a most 
gradual transition exists between the normal seminiferous 
scale and the two or three first leaves of an axillary bud, is 
ample for the solution of the problem as to the position of 
the seminiferous scale between the bract and the axis (Fig. i). 
I hold both with Velenovsky and Celakovsky that this evidence 
is eminently to be relied upon, because ‘ in all stages of the 
scale-metamorphosis we find a definite law and the greatest 
regularity of development,* and e such a regularity can never 
be an equivocal, pathological, and casual phenomenon.* This 
will hardly apply to the evidence derived from the anatomy 
or the development, which, as Celakovsky has shown, is quite 
untrustworthy. So that, speaking for myself, this part of the 
whole problem is already solved. 
With regard to the vexed question of Gymnospermy which 
is intimately bound up with and, indeed, inseparable from 
that as to the nature of the seminiferous scale, the view 
propounded by Celakovsky is once more distinguished by 
its comprehensiveness of outlook, and by the fact of its 
suggesting a unity of morphological structure throughout, 
