137 
éarpels which constitute the compound pistil. They dre lined by 
a double series of flat pavement-cells (fig. 3) homologous with the 
external epidermis. It is these closely set flat cells—very differ- 
ent from the round, loosely connected cells of the surrounding 
pulp—which constitute the secreting tissue or gland proper. 
Brongniart,* who studied this class of glands very thoroughly, 
could find no external opening to these of Yucca, although Y. 
gloriosa is included in his list.t He,was, therefore, of the opinion 
that they must communicate with a narrow canal which runs 
between the carpels from base to summit, and which, as Riley 
has stated, and as I have attempted to show in figure I, passes 
above into the stigmatic cavity, into which the three cells of the 
ovary open by narrow but unmistakable passages. Such stylar 
or intrastylar canals communicating with the ovary are not infre- 
quent in the vegetable kingdom,} the loose, more or less deliques- 
cent cells which line them replacing the conducting tissue of 
such plants as have a solid style, in the guidance and nutrition of 
the pollen tubes. 
Another point which misled Brongniart was ‘the failure to | 
detect nectar about the pistil, as in_A//ium, Hyacinthus and other 
genera. The reason for this appears to be twofold. The amount 
of secretion under the most favorable circumstances in Yucca 
filamentosa, to which my remarks apply, is very small, nor is it 
discharged externally at the point D, where the gland opens, but, 
as may be seen from a comparison of figures 1 and 2, it is poured 
at this point into a capillary tube (g), enclosed by the closely — 
applied but not outwardly united lobes of the ovary, in which it 
flows downward to a point (N, fig. 1) at the base of the pistil, 
where the tube widens slightly into a contracted triangular pore, 
opposite the base of a petal, and discharges the scanty supply of | 
fluid, which I have never seen more than filling it, while in many ~ 
cases this opening is not even perceptibly moistened. : 
ot 
*Mémoire sur les glandes nectariféres de l’ovaire—Ann. des Sci. nat., 4th Ser., 
ii.4. See also Grassmann : Die Septaldriisen.—Flora, — Nos. 7-8; and aheisuick in 
Bot. Centralblatt, xix., 5. ; 
+Pp. 5-6 of reprint. 
$See Behrens : Untersuchungen iiber den anatomischen Bau des Griffels und der 
Narbe. Inaugural Dissertation, Géttingen, 1875. : 
