OF THE EMBRYOS IN THE SEEDS OF CONIFERS. 571
branes of a brown colour, presenting their acute apices towards the surface, and at the base seeming to pass gradually into the lighter-coloured pulpy substance of which the mass of the amnios consists.
Corresponding and nearly approximated to each of these conical membranes, a filament, generally of great length, and either entirely simple or giving off a few lateral branches, was found. This filament or funiculus consisted generally of four series of elongated transparent cells or vessels, usually adhering together with firmness, but in some cases readily separable without laceration ; and in one of the species examined, Fhius Pinaster, the transverse septa of the funiculus were either very obscure or altogether Avanting.
The upper extremity of each funiculus was in all cases [371 manifestly thickened and of a depressed spheroidal form ; and in each of the four cells or vessels of which it consisted exhibited a small opake areola analogous to the nucleus of the cell, so frequently observable in the tissue of Monoco- tyledonous plants, and which also exists, though less com- monly, in Dicotyledones.
A lacerated and extremely transparent membrane was generally found surrounding and adhering to the thickened origin or head of the funiculus.
In the earliest state examined of Piiius Pinastery the funiculus was found equally transparent through its whole length, and having no appearance of subdivision or any other indication of embryo at its lower extremity. In a somewhat more advanced state of the same plant, as well as in the two other species observed, namely, Pinus si/lvcstris and Strobus, the lower extremity of the funiculus was sub- divided into short cells, sometimes disposed in a double series, but more frequently with less regularity and in greater numbers, the lowest being in all cases the most minute and also the must opake, from the de])osition of granular matter, which is nearly or entirely wanting in the upper part of the cord. This opake granular extremity of the funiculus is evidently the rudiment of an embryo. When the funiculus ramifies, each branch is generally terminated
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