1102 Tho day*— The Female Inflorescence and Ovules of 
description of the macroscopic features of the ovules, it appears likely that 
the detailed structure of the integuments in the various species 1 would differ 
widely, and such differences may well prove of value in comparison with 
other seeds both fossil and recent. 
The present paper includes an account of the vascular system in the 
female inflorescences of G. africanum and G. scandens, and of the male 
inflorescence of G. scandens. Several interesting points serve to recall the 
structure in the allied genus Welwitschia and in the Cycads. 
The structure of the ovules in G. africanum has many points of 
interest. A short description of these was given at the Sheffield meeting of 
the British Association, where attention was also drawn to the remarkable de¬ 
tailed resemblance between the ovules of this species and those of Bennettites. 
I. Recapitulation of the General Morphology of Inflorescence 
and Ovule in Gnetum. 
The inflorescence in most species 2 is a spike, bearing at its base two 
bracts, in the axils of which other inflorescences, buds or flowers may occur. 
At each node of the inflorescence axis is a cupule derived from two fused 
bracts, 3 in the axil of which the flowers are borne on a ring-shaped swelling 
of the inflorescence axis. The swelling or cushion arises from a ring of 
meristematic tissue in the axil of the young cupule, and the flowers are 
developed by further localized growth of portions of this tissue. 4 Between 
and below the flowers the cushion is covered with numerous multicellular 
hairs (Fig. 3 A, PI. LXXXVI). 
In the female inflorescence, the presence of five to eight flowers in 
a ring is general throughout the genus. Five to seven are common 
numbers in G. africanum and six appears to be usual in G. scandens. 
In the early stages the cupules with their axillary swellings are crowded 
together, but later they are usually more or less separated from one another 
by the growth of the internodes. In G. scandens , the nodes become very 
widely separated (Fig. 1, PI. LXXXVI); in G. africanum , on the other hand 
(Fig. 2, PI. LXXXVI), the internode is very short and the nodal swelling 
extends over a relatively very large area. 
The bases of the young flowers are sunk deeply into the swollen axis, 
so that the portions of the cushion intervening between them appear in trans¬ 
verse section as peltate projections (PL LXXXVI, Fig. 3 B, G. africanum). 
1 Karsten, 1893 (1) and (2). One difference remarked is that seeds may be angular and pointed 
at the apex, or smooth and rounded at the apex. The species described here both belong to the 
latter class. 
2 See Strasburger, 1872, 1879; Karsten, 1893; Lotsy, 1899, &c. In some species, such as 
G. scandens, G. Ula , and G. Rumphianum , the stalks of the mature seeds are so much elongated that 
the inflorescence becomes at length a raceme. 
3 Karsten : Cohn’s Beitrage, 1893, p. 340, &c. 
4 Lotsy, 1S97, p. 84. 
