But in Cycadeae, at least, and especially
in Zamia, the resemblance between the male and female spadices is so
great, that if the female be analogous to an ovarium, the partial male
spadix must be considered as a single anthera, producing on its surface
either naked grains of pollen, or pollen subdivided into masses, each
furnished with its proper membrane.

Both these views may at present, perhaps, appear equally paradoxical; yet
the former was entertained by Linnaeus, who expresses himself on the
subject in the following terms, Pulvis floridus in Cycade minime pro
Antheris agnoscendus est sed pro nudo polline, quod unusquisque qui
unquam pollen antherarum in plantis examinavit fatebitur.* That this
opinion, so confidently held by Linnaeus, was never adopted by any other
botanist, seems in part to have arisen from his having extended it to
dorsiferous Ferns. Limited to Cycadeae, however, it does not appear to me
so very improbable, as to deserve to be rejected without examination. It
receives, at least, some support from the separation, in several cases,
especially in the American Zamiae, of the grains into two distinct, and
sometimes nearly marginal, masses, representing, as it may be supposed,
the lobes of an anthera; and also from their approximation in definite
numbers, generally in fours, analogous to the quaternary union of the
grains of pollen, not unfrequent in the antherae of several other
families of plants. The great size of the supposed grains of pollen, with
the thickening and regular bursting of their membrane, may be said to be
circumstances obviously connected with their production and persistence
on the surface of an anthera, distant from the female flower; and with
this economy, a corresponding enlargement of the contained particles or
fovilla might also be expected. On examining these particles, however, I
find them not only equal in size to the grains of pollen of many
antherae, but, being elliptical and marked on one side with a
longitudinal furrow, they have that form which is one of the most common
in the simple pollen of phaenogamous plants. To suppose, therefore,
merely on the grounds already stated, that these particles are analogous
to the fovilla, and the containing organs to the grains of pollen in
antherae of the usual structure, would be entirely gratuitous. It is, at
the same time, deserving of remark, that were this view adopted on more
satisfactory grounds, a corresponding development