Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/582

 than as belonging to the ovulum; but in Gnetum, where three envelopes exist, two of these may, with great probability, be regarded as coats of the nucleus; while in Podocarpus and Dacrydium, the outer cupula, as I formerly termed it, may also, perhaps, be viewed as the testa of the ovulum. To this view, as far as relates to Dacrydium, the longitudinal fissure of the outer coat in the early stage, and its state in the ripe fruit, in which it forms only a partial covering, may be objected. But these objections are, in a great measure, removed by the analogous structure already described in Banksia and Dryandra.

The plurality of embryos sometimes occurring in Coniferæ, and which, in Cycadeæ, seems even to be the natural structure, may also, perhaps, be supposed to form an objection to the present opinion, though to me it appears rather an argument in its favour.

Upon the whole, the objections to which the view here taken of the structure of these two families is still liable, seem to me, as far as I am aware of them, much less important than those that may be brought against the other opinions that have been advanced, and still divide botanists on this subject.

According to the earliest of these opinions, the female flower of Cycadeæ and Coniferæ is a monospermous pistillum, having no proper floral envelope.

To this structure, however, Pinus itself was long considered by many botanists as presenting an exception.

Linnaeus has expressed himself so obscurely in the natural character which he has given of this genus, that I find it difficult to determine what his opinion of its structure really