164 Dr. Schleiden on the Structure of the Ovule in Plants. 



perly speaking curved downwards), but in reality erect. The 

 correctness of this statement is confirmed by the history of 

 development. As far as I am aware, no one has profited by 

 these inquiries of Brown, in order to solve similar anomalies 

 which obscure the clear perception of affinity ; for which ob- 

 ject the Ranunculacece present an excellent opportunity. The 

 one-seeded plants of this family have been divided according 

 to the difference of pendent and erect ovules (?) into Ranun- 

 culace(B and Anemonece ; and botanists have remained content 

 with believing in such an important distinction even between 

 plants so nearly allied to each other. But the ovule in these 

 two divisions is at a not very early state exactly similarly con- 

 structed, and is ovulum adscendens anatropum, figs. 1 — 2 ; at 

 a subsequent period the ovarium either grows alone upwards, 

 when we have an ovulum erectum anatropum, fig. 3, or the ova- 

 rium is compelled to employ for its development the space 



Fig. 4. a 



Fig. 2. 



Fig. 3. 



below the ovulum, which then curves from the placenta down- 

 wards and becomes spurie pendulum, anatropum raphe aversa, 

 fig. 4. In several species no difference is perceptible at the 

 time of flowering (for instance between Ranunculus and Myo- 

 surus) ; and in all the others intermediate forms run so gra- 



