14 ON THE STRUCTURE OF CRUCIFEROUS FLOWERS. 
ment. This opinion by no means agrees with the observations on 
Embryogeny, published by M. Trécul.* 
Having explained the opinions of those who have gone before 
us on the female organ, we shall proceed to develop our own. 
The ovarian leaf ( pág/Zidiwm Phyt. Can.) and its result, the 
earpidium, in the Cruciferous Order, differ really in appearance only 
from that of other polycarpidian plants. Both reasoning and ana- 
logy have brought us to this conclusion; and its truth is fully 
confirmed by several monstrous flowers, published by different 
authors. 
As in other Phyllidia, the ovuliferous nerves or placenta: are car- 
ried along the border of the leaf, and are modifications in fact of its 
lateral nerves. At their summit they form a dicephalous stigma, 
whose two heads are separated by the depression resulting from the 
non-development of the middle nerve of the leaf. The two or more 
Phyllidia which compose the ovarium are exactly united by means 
of their placentæ together with their stigmata; and the apparent 
stigma derived from their union is divided by the common canal 
result of the depressions of both ovarian leaves confounded to- 
gether. The lateral lobes of each opposite phyllidium being thus 
brought together and forming an apparent whole, botanists sup- 
posed they had before them two stigmata in this order opposed to 
the placentæ, which was contrary to all analogy. 
When the fruit is ripe, the placente and stigmata of the two 
united carpidia persist attached together, as well as the double 
spurious dissepiment,t which they have projected to the middle of 
the fruit, or in those called /enestrati to within a short distance of 
the axis, whilst the laminz of the leaves, transformed into valves, 
fall off.f A similar dehiscence is seen in the Papaveraceæ and 
several of the Capparidee. 
* Ann. des Sc. Nat. 2ième Sér. vol. 20, 1843, p. 339. 3 
T M. Trécul has shown that the dissepiment, originally simple, becomes double by es 
the rupture lengthwise of the lax and elongated tissue of the interior cells. Eus 
+ In the Parolinia ornata, described by one of us, the summit of the carpidia - ED 
is protruded in the form of two narrow horns almost parallel, bifurcated at their 
extremity, much longer than the styles, but so like styles, that Dr. Lindley, in his ela- 
-borate work (Veg. Kingd. p. 352) has mistaken them for these. Thay es 
