35 
new genus Hoplitis, established by the distinguished Vienna 
botanist, Mr. Endlicher, and the existence at the same time 
of an extra carpellary common seed-stalk is an additional 
proof in support of my theory. 
And now I think that every one must agree with me that 
in the entire, extensive, and most natural family of the Um- 
bellifere, that organ which the late Professor Hoffman called 
Spermopodium, and which DeCandolle calls the Carpopho- 
rum, is nothing else than the same extracarpellary common 
seed-stalk. From the very close affinity even in the fruit 
between the Saxifragacee and the Umbellifera, it appears to 
me that we may safely conclude that the base or lower point 
of attachment of the carpels is in the same place as that of 
the sepals, which, if the general opinion be followed, cover the 
fruit, become connate with it and with each other ;* conse- 
quently the next nodus of the prolonged axis, to which they are 
suspended for some time at their maturity, emits laterally only 
the partial seminal pedicels, and higher up the styles with their 
thickened bases or stylopodia. But if we admit that the car- 
pellary envelopes have their base at the same upper nodus of 
the axis, and that like the seminal envelopes they are campy- 
lotropous and pendulous, even then it would not follow that 
the partial seminal pedicels proceed from the margin of the 
carpellary leaves, as is asserted under the prevalent theory, 
and not from the nodus of the axis, which latter is infinitely 
more probable, and in many cases evident to the eye. 
In close alliance with the Umbellifere is the family of 
the Araliaceze, and. here we find two or more, even to twelve 
monospermous carpels growing together by means of the 
ealyx which clothes them—and here withoutside of the closed 
carpels we see the prolongation of the floral peduncle in the 
form of a central axis emitting from an upper nodus the seeds 
* According to my ideas, the calyx of Umbelliferee, not ceasing to be supe- 
rior in the female and hermaphrodite flowers,proceeds from that nodus of the 
prolongation of the peduncle, from whence proceed also the styles with their 
thickened basis or stylopodia, as well as the partial seminal pedicels. The 
verticil of organs which covers the fruit I should consider as a kind of invo- 
lucellum, a proof of which is furnished by the number of primary and 
secondary juga of the fruit, which cannot be explained by the ordinary 
theory; by the independence of this involucellum from the calyx in the 
female flowers of Astrantia, and its great affinity to the involucellum in the 
allied family of Dipsaces. (See Seseli, Hippomarathrum, and Bupleurum 
stellatum.) 
May, F.—1841. F. 
