Gnetum africannm, with Notes on Gnetum scandens. 1133 
a hypothesis of the origin of the Bennettitalean ‘ flower 5 which is given in 
so graphic a manner and is so fully in accordance with the forthcoming 
evidence that it carries conviction with it. That the interseminal scale 
finds its progenitor in the fern sporophyll is altogether probable, and is 
of course a belief which is commonly held, but it is harder to follow the 
writer in his derivation of the angiospermous carpel from the actual inter¬ 
seminal scale now found in the Bennettitales. The carpel of such Angio- 
sperms as the Ranalean series seems more naturally related to the sporo¬ 
phyll of Schuster’s ‘ Urtypus ’ of Bennettites , which is almost a Pteridophyte, 
than to the specialized scale of the known types. In view of the growing 
belief in the polyphyletic origin of the Angiosperms it may well be that in 
other forms without marginal ovules the carpel found its origin in a more 
specialized organ ; possibly resembling more nearly the 4 bract ’ in Wei - 
witschia , as has been already suggested in a previous paper. 
Oct. 10, 1911. 
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