//. The Ovule of Stangeria paradoxa . 299 
The general type of ovule is the same and may fairly be 
regarded as the most primitive preserved among existing 
plants, a conclusion that has received the strongest support 
from the discovery in recent years of the peculiar behaviour 
of the pollen-grain, and the free passage of motile spermato- 
zoids from the pollen-chamber to the archegonium in Cycads. 
It thus appears to be a legitimate course to pursue, to seek 
for indications of the probable mode of origin of the Cycadean 
ovule from the living forms, in which alone the ontogeny 
is accessible, since the group has preserved so many primitive 
characters apparently little altered. 
The inquiry, as limited to the sporangia of Cycadaceae , has 
two aspects, the question as to the group of Pteridophyta 
from which the Cycads were derived, and that of the mor¬ 
phology of the Cycadean ovule. The former of these questions, 
if capable of a satisfactory answer, would afford a starting- 
point for the solution of the latter, by indicating the type 
of sporangium, from which both microsporangium and ovule 
were derived, though it would remain a question whether the 
ovule is to be regarded simply as a modified sporangium, or 
as a sporangium together with part of the sporophyll. Looking 
to the habit, structure, and floral morphology of both Cordaiteae 
and Cycadaceae it cannot be said that their relationship to 
any particular group of Vascular Cryptogams is at present 
satisfactorily proved, but as regards the Cycadaceae a number 
of facts are known pointing to an origin from a Fern-like group 
of plants. This (which may be taken as the most probable 
hypothesis open to us at present) would accord well with the 
position and arrangement of the microsporangia. 
Even if this question is regarded as in some degree an open 
one, it is possible to inquire into the morphology of the 
Cycadean ovule, since we may assume with some probability 
that the microsporangium, with its general resemblance to 
the more bulky sporangia found among the Ferns, has not 
come to differ very widely from the sporangia of the unknown 
ancestral group. 
Before, however, considering the facts regarding Stangeria 
