The FLOWERS are monœcious or more rarely diœcious. _Perianth is wanting._ The stamens of the _catkin-like male flowers_ (Fig. 267, _J_) are of different forms, but as a rule more or less shield-like. As in the Cycadeæ, the pollen-sacs are in all cases situated _on the underside_. There are, as a rule, two pollen-sacs (the Abietaceæ, Fig. 267), or 3–5, (the Cupressaceæ and Taxaceæ, Fig. 243); a few have more, _e.g. Araucaria_ (Fig. 242); they dehisce by clefts. If, in commencing our consideration of the _female flower_, we begin with that of _Ginkgo_, we shall observe in the corner of a scale- or foliage-leaf a small flower, which consists of two carpels, each bearing one ovule, and reduced almost to the ovule itself (Fig. 260 _C_, _D_). The flower in _Podocarpus_ is still further reduced, viz. to a single carpel with one ovule, which is anatropous and has two integuments. This ovule is situated in the axil of a cover-scale (_c_, in Fig. 262 _D_), and several female flowers of this description are collected in a small cone, the stalk and bracts of which become fleshy (Fig. 262 _C_). The external integument also becomes fleshy (an aril). _Dacrydium_, which is clearly related to _Podocarpus_, has an external integument which developes more independently as a fleshy aril (Fig. 262 _B_, _B’_). _Microcachrys_ also is clearly allied to these: the bracts are more fleshy, and the ovule (_i.e._ the female flower) is protruded beyond the bract (Fig. 262 _A_, _A’_). _Taxus_ stands in a more isolated position: a flower which has been reduced to an ovule is situated, in this instance, on the apex of a secondary branch which is studded with floral-leaves (Figs. 263, 264); an external integument is developed on all sides and surrounds the seed as a scarlet aril. According to this conception _the aril corresponds to an external integument_, and the Taxoideæ thus possess a partly dichlamydeous ovule. Only _Ginkgo_ and _Cephalotaxus_ appear to deviate from this, as in these there is only one integument (unless the small outgrowth indicated by _ar_, in Fig. 260 _D_, really is a rudimentary, external integument); in CYCADEÆ, to which _Ginkgo_ is most closely related, there is likewise only one integument. But in these genera the testa is differentiated into two layers, and the seed resembles a drupe; like the Cycadeæ there is an external fleshy covering and an internal hard one, and these two layers may probably be considered homologous with the two integuments. This theory is also borne out by the arrangement of the vascular bundles in _Cephalotaxus_ and _Podocarpus_, which present the xylem in the fleshy external layer to the _outside_ of the testa, which is therefore the upper side of the integument (Celakovsky). The coalescence of the integuments into one is only slight in _Torreya_, more pronounced in _Podocarpus_ and strongest in _Cephalotaxus_ and _Ginkgo_. Celakovsky terms these ovules “holochlamydeous.”