HOOKER ON WELWITSCHIA. 205 
anatomy and histology of the plant, especially of the stock and 
leaves. > 
As the process of germination has not yet been followed out, 
we shall not attempt to supply hypothetically the details of de¬ 
velopment which have resulted in conditions so anomalous. "With 
regard to the form of the trunk, the non-development of vegetative 
axes and the persistence of the cotyledons, we hope that before long 
Dr. Hooker may be in a position to furnish a supplement to his 
Memoir, describing the details of germination, and settling the diffi¬ 
culties which it is now a waste of time to speculate about, especially 
as regards the nature and origin of the crown of the stock from 
which the flower-stalks spring. 
A consideration of the central organ of the 4 hermaphrodite’ 
flower suggests matter which may detain us a short space. We 
have noted this organ as one of the most anomalous features of the 
plant. It is the only case of a 4 gymnospermous’ plant with struc¬ 
turally hermaphrodite flowers ; or, to put it differently, the only 
plant with hermaphrodite flowers which are at the same time desti¬ 
tute of carpels. So far it is highly interesting. But the question 
which it recalls is of greater interest. It is one which has of late 
been prominently before botanists mainly through the recent endea¬ 
vour, on the part of a young French observer, to controvert, upon 
organogenic grounds, the generally accepted view, first advanced 
by Kobert Brown, of the morphological equivalent of the envelopes 
of the ovule of Gymnosperms. It is a question which applies 
not to Welwitschia only, but to the whole group of so-called 
4 Gymnospermous’ plants, which we have been accustomed to regard 
as characterised by naked ovules — ovules not protected by a carpellary 
covering from the direct contact of the pollen. 
It stands thus :—What is the morphological equivalent in other 
flowering plants of the integument of the ovule in 4 Gymnosperms ’ P 
Is it (1) the equivalent of a carpel or carpels P or (2) is it the equiva¬ 
lent of the coat of the ovule of angiosperms ? We may add, or (3) is 
it a structure morphologically distinct from both of these ? 
Many were of opinion that the hermaphrodite flowers of Wel¬ 
witschia might enable us definitely to solve the problem ; but in 
reference to the evidence bearing upon the question at issue afforded 
by this plant we copy the following paragraphs from Dr. Hooker’s 
Memoir:— 
“ There is nothing in the development of this ovule that favours the theory 
that the integument of the nucleus in Gymnospermous plants is of carpellary origin, 
except the singular form and relative position of that organ in the hermaphro¬ 
dite flower. In position, texture, structure and development it entirely resembles 
the coat immediately investing the nucleus in all other Gymnosperms ; like these, 
and unlike carpellary organs, it is entirely devoid of vascular tissue in its substance, 
and of conducting tissue in its styliform prolongation *, unlike a carpel it rises 
symmetrically round the nucleus, and in the hermaphrodite flower presents a sym¬ 
metrical terminal disc, and it ceases to grow long before the maturation of the seed ; 
and still more unlike a carpel it is carried up with the growing seed till its base is 
