The Grouping of Vascular Plants 87 
close resemblance to the Cordaitalean and Taxus type, and possibly 
if we knew the history of the Cycad seed we could show that the 
resemblance to a Stachyosperm seed is the result of relatively recent 
convergence. 
Further evidence in support of the original Meiophyll character 
of the leaves in Conifers is their early formation of a strobilus. The 
catkin of Cordaites is a strobilus and this strobilus or reproductive 
brachyblast (cf. Taxus) is regarded by the vast majority of morpho¬ 
logists at the present day as persisting in the form of the ovuliferous 
scale of the Abietineae and in a more or less disguised form in the 
ligule of the “cone scale” of Araucarineae where the one seeded 
character of the brachyblast is supposed to have facilitated a closer 
degree of fusion. 
If one contrasts this early strobilus formation with that found 
among the Meriphylls where the earliest recorded case of strobilus 
formation is in the Triassic, we see how improbable as well as un¬ 
necessary it is to withhold credence from the view that the Stachyo- 
sperms are Meiophylls. It is for this reason they are entered as 
Meiophylls on the accompanying diagram on p. 89. 
CONCLUSION. 
The view that the Cordaitales had megaphyllous ancestors and 
that as a corollary the absence of sporophylls was due to reduction, 
is so widely found in botanical literature that it seems gratuitous 
to give any references. The view that the Araucarineae belong to 
a distinct race from the Fern-Cycad alliance so ably reasoned 
out by Seward and Ford 1 in 1906 was still adhered to by the 
former in 1919 2 in the account of recent Coniferae in his Fossil 
Plants. In this account he expresses doubt as to the brachyblast 
origin of the ovuliferous scale even in Abietineae. The grounds for 
his view differ widely from those advocated in this paper as to the 
affinity of Coniferae, for the presence and character of the reproduc¬ 
tive brachyblast is here largely relied on as evidence of the indepen¬ 
dent origin of the Stachyosperms. It should be noted that Prof. 
Seward has never limited the suggested source of the Coniferae to 
the Lycopods but again and again pointed out their resemblances 
to Equisetum and Cheirostrobus. In the Discussion at the Linnean 
Society 3 in 1906 it was obvious that more support would have been 
1 Seward and Ford, Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. Series B. 198 . 
2 Seward, Fossil Plants, 4 , p. 117. 
3 New Phytologisi, 5 , “Discussion on the Origin of Gymnosperms.” 
