OF THE EMBRYOS IN THE SEEDS OF CONIFERiE. 573
markably modified ; and they have ascertained some points in Finns itself that I had overlooked.
In this memoir M. de Mirbel refers to his early obser- vations on the structure of the seeds of Cycas wliich occur in an essay read before the Academy of Sciences in October 1810, and soon after published in the ' Annales du Museum/^
These observations and the figures illustrating them clearly prove M. de Mirbel's knowledge of the plurality of embryos in Cycas at that period. And in his recent memoir on Conifer ce he regards them as giving the earliest notice of that remarkable structure ; stating also that my first publi- cation on the same subject was in 1835.
But as the ' Prodronms I'lorac Novae Hollandia)' was published before M. de Mirbel's essay in the 'Annales du JNlus^um/ which appears from his references to that work in the essay in question, he must have overlooked the fol- lowing passages : —
In Cycadi angulata puncta areae depressac apicis seminis totidem canalibus brevibus respondent gelatina homogenea prinmm repletis et membrana propria instructis, unico quantum observavimus embryonifero, quo augente reliqui mox obliterati sunt." — Prodr. p. 347.
" Structura huic omnino similis hactenus absque exemplo nee ulla analoga (nempe embryones plures in distinctis cavitatibus ejusdem albuminis) nisi in Cycadi et nounun- (piam in Visco cognita sit." — Prodr. p. 307.
I may add, that this structure of Cycas was ascertained in living plants on the east and north coasts of New Hol- land in 1802 and 1803.
The earliest observer of the principal fact, however, was probably the late Aubert du Petit Thouars, w^lio in a disser- tation on the structure and affinities of Cycas published in 1S04," distinctly notices the j)oints on the- surface and the corresponding corpuscula within the apex of thetilbumen, into which corj)uscula he hazards the conjecture that the grains ls7s of pollen enter and become the future embryos. This, in
' Annales du Museum d'llist. Nat. torn, xvi, p. 252, tab. 20. '■' Histoire dcs Vcg6taux des lies d'Afrique, p. 9, tab. 2, n.
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