246 M. Duchartre on the Organogeny of the Malvaceae. 



sequently become slightly swollen externally and inferiorly, so that 

 each tubercle presents two enlargements; one external and inferior, 

 the future ovary, — another superior and internal, the future style. 

 The latter becomes elongated and raised in proportion as the 

 former increases in size ; but as it elongates, the stylous portions, 

 remaining distinct at their summits, are confounded at their base, 

 — at least all those which correspond to the same angle of the com- 

 mon support of the carpels ; an angle which becomes more and 

 more marked as far as the point at which the entire body is as 

 it were cut into five oblique lobes loaded with ovules on every 

 part of their surface. A bundle of styles, equal in number, di- 

 stinct superiorly and united inferiorly, thus corresponds to each 

 of these systems of ovaries ; and each of these systems, in the 

 general symmetry, plays an analogous part to that which we have 

 found assigned to each of the bundles of stamens, because it oc- 

 cupies the place which a single carpel should occupy, and which 

 it consequently represents. How is the cavity of the ovary 

 formed ? 



M. Duchartre has not in this case found that the margins of a 

 folded leaflet approximate towards one another, then touch and 

 adhere ; but, at a certain period, dissection has exhibited to him 

 the cellular mass of the ovary excavated by a slight fissure, which 

 continues to enlarge, without any manifest external appearance. 



A third category, and that includes the greater part of the 

 Malvacecs, exhibits the carpels not in constant relation with the 

 quinary number of the other parts of the flower ; but they form 

 a perfect circle, are not grouped into five systems, and frequently 

 their entire number is no multiple of five. However, M. Du- 

 chartre is led to believe that the same symmetry occurs here as 

 in the preceding case. The ovaries and styles are developed in 

 the same manner, with this diff^erence, that all the styles are 

 united inferiorly into a single cylinder. 



Finally, a fourth category seems to belong to the first by the 

 quinary number of the carpels ; but here we observe ten tu- 

 bercles on the pistillary border, which subsequently form ten 

 summits of distinct styles, and which correspond in pairs to five 

 ovaries, the centre of which also becomes hollowed by a fissure, 

 which forms its cavity without any change being externally ap- 

 parent. 



The necessary conclusion from all these observations is, that the 

 parts, from their earliest appearance, present the relations of ad- 

 hesion which they subsequently exhibit in the perfect flower. The 

 monophyllous calyx on its first appearance was a body simple at 

 the base. The petals, coherent by their base with the staminal 

 tube, originated from a base common to them with the stamens, 

 and the latter at their origin were united by this base in the same 



