Rich bosses of willow flame in front of it, and from the base of these the brown meadow comes forward to the water's edge, the whole being relieved against the unyielding green of the coniferae, while thick sun-gold is poured over all.

The Hemlock Spruce is the most singularly beautiful of all the California coniferae.

The staminate cones of all the coniferae are beautiful, growing in bright clusters, yellow, and rose, and crimson.

Coniferae, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, and other American Plants.

Coniferae : Dacrydium sp.?

Coniferae : Podocarpos aspleniifolia, Labillardiere : Adventure Bay Yew, or Pine : 40 to 50 : 12 to 16 inches.

"It is a species of pine," was the reply, "because it belongs to the Coniferae, or cone-producing, family; but it is not an evergreen, although it ranks as such.

"The cypress tribe," said Miss Harson, "differ from the pines, or Coniferae, by not having their fruit in a true cone, but in a roundish head which consists of a small number of scales, sometimes forming a sort of berry.

In such an arid soil the coniferae alone could flourish, and accordingly we find that the wide-spreading region is overgrown almost entirely with white and yellow pine, hemlock, and cedar.

The only plants of Asphodeleae remarked on the north-western shores, were an imperfect Tricoryne, probably Tenella of Mr. Brown, discovered by that gentleman during the Investigator's voyage on the South Coast; and the intratropical Asparagus, which is frequent in latitude fifteen degrees South. CONIFERAE.

To the general observations already made on that part of Coniferae inhabiting the southern hemisphere, may be added some important facts, to be gathered from the plants in the Herbarium of the late voyages, that will afford a very correct view of the fructification of some doubtful genera, as well as their limits.

Other genera also, but little influenced by those local circumstances of situation on the East Coast, that are excluded from the opposite shores, are Leucopogon (the only equinoctial genus of Epacrideae observed during the late voyages) the families Bignoniaceae, Jasmineae, the genus Erythrina, and of Coniferae, Araucaria of Norfolk Island.

ON THE FEMALE FLOWER OF CYCADEAE AND CONIFERAE.

ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE FEMALE FLOWER IN CYCADEAE AND CONIFERAE.

But such, I believe, is the real explanation of the structure of Cycadeae, of Coniferae, of Ephedra, and even of Gnetum, of which Thoa of Aublet is a species.

The similarity of the female flower in Cycadeae and Coniferae to the ovulum of other phaenogamous plants, as I have described it, is indeed sufficiently obvious to render the opinion here advanced not altogether improbable.

The facts most likely to be produced as arguments against this view of the structure of Coniferae, are the unequal and apparently secreting surface of the apex of the supposed nucleus in most cases; its occasional projection beyond the orifice of the outer coat; its cohesion with that coat by a considerable portion of its surface, and the not unfrequent division of the orifice of the coat.

There is one fact that will hardly be brought forward as an objection, and which yet seems to me to present a difficulty, to this opinion; namely, the greater simplicity in Cycadeae, and in the principal part of Coniferae, of the supposed ovulum which consists of a nucleus and one coat only, compared with the organ as generally existing when enclosed in an ovarium.

The plurality of embryos sometimes occurring in Coniferae, and which, in Cycadeae, 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.

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

But in 1812, in conjunction with M. Schoubert,** he proposed a very different view of the structure of Cycadeae and Coniferae, stating, that in their female flowers there is not only a minute cohering perianthium present, but an external additional envelope, to which he has given the name of cupula.

But the analogy of the female spadix of Cycas to that of Zamia is sufficiently obvious; and from the spadix of Zamia to the fruit-bearing squama of Coniferae, strictly so called, namely, of Agathis or Dammara, Cunninghamia, Pinus, and even Araucaria, the transition is not difficult.

If, however, the ovula in Cycadeae and Coniferae be really produced on the surface of an ovarium, it might, perhaps, though not necessarily, be expected that their male flowers should differ from those of all other phaenogamous plants, and in this difference exhibit some analogy to the structure of the female flower.

In Coniferae, however, the pollen is certainly not naked, but is enclosed in a membrane similar to the lobe of an ordinary anthera.

In communicating specimens of this plant to the late M. Richard, for his intended monograph of Coniferae, I added some remarks on its structure, agreeing with those here made.