
Manual of the Southeastern Flora
John Kunkel Small
Copyright - UNC Press 1998, 1999. All Rights Reserved.
CLASS 1. GYMNOSPERMAE CONE-PLANTS
Carpel or pistil represented by a scale on the face of which the ovules are borne, and on which the naked seeds mature.
Plants growing by single terminal bud or sometimes with adventitious buds, when with pinnate leaves, circinate in bud.
- Palm-like or fern-like plants. Leaves in a crown: blades pinnate. Flowers in cones of approximate scales or on less modified leaves. Staminate cone with scales bearing several pollen-sacs. Ovulate cone with two or more ovules on each scale. Seed drupe-like or nut-like..... Order CYCADALES.
- Shrubs or trees. Leaves scale-like, narrow, or needle like, and often borne in bundles. Flowers mainly monoecious, the cones of spirally imbricate bracts or in Taxaceae the ovulate flowers often solitary. Seed borne in a cone of dry or fleshy scales, or partly or wholly naked. - A group developed later and more highly organized than the CYCADALES..... Order PINALES.