BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 40} 
versement dans son fruit, la gousse pendant sa maturation 
se tourne sur la base; mais comment le supposer dans une 
Courge, dont les carpelles sont entourées du torus et du calyce? 
Cette position des carpelles existe cependant dans cette 
singulière famille, et me paroît tellement incompréhensible 
que j'ai eu de la peine à me décider à l'annoncer. J'ai fait 
des coupes de fruits trés-jeunes, demi-mûrs et mûrs de bien 
des Cucurbitacées, et j'ai toujours trouvé la méme position 
des carpelles.” De Candolle adopts this view in his 
* Prodromus; as may be learned from the following passage : 
—“ Carpella 3 vel 5, carnosa (abortu? solitaria) toro et 
calyce involuta, peponidem formantia, nervo medio carpel- 
lorum centrali et margine seminifero externo." 
Neither Seringe nor De Candolle has, however, so 
clearly or satisfactorily demonstrated this very singular 
structure, as has Dr. Wight, in his paper originally 
published in the ‘Madras Journal of Science “In a 
Pepo,” says Dr. Wight, “the’ normal position of the mid- 
rib of the carpellary leaf is reversed, that is, placed in the 
axil, and the placentiferous margins towards the circumfe- 
rence. That such is actually the case requires no argument 
to prove; we have only to cut the ovary of any true 
cucurbitaceous plant, to be made sensible, at a glance, that 
itis so." "To test this theory I examined the young ovaries 
of several species of the Order, and in all of them found 
convincing evidence of its truth. In Coccinia Indica 
the structure is most beautifully exhibited, for there the 
revolute margins of the carpels which form the dissepiments 
. do not adhere, and when a longitudinal cut is made in a 
transverse slice of the ovary, the three carpels readily 
separate from each other, the inner angle exhibiting a dense 
point of vascular tissue, which evidently is the mid- 
rib. When the carpels are thus separated, and allowed 
_ to retain their adhesion to the adherent tube of the 
- _ Calyx, the placente are distinctly seen to be formed 
from the slightly involute margins of the revolute car- 
Pellary leaf. In the species of Bryonia with two cells, the 
