Miscellaneous botanical notes XXVII

In a recent thesis B.S. Fey (Zürich) has developed a new theory about the origin of the cupule in Fagaceae. He has concluded that the appendages (spines, lamellae, etc.) on the outside of the cupule are regularly arranged and that they reflect a condensation (concrescence) of a dichasial flower system, so that cupule and fruit(s) form together the representation of one ancestral inflorescence; the cupular appendages would then largely represent the bracts of the ancestral inflorescence. This stands in contrast with former opinions, in which the cupule was interpreted as of separate vegetative origin from the nut(s) which was (were) the remain (s) of the inflorescence.