Organization in Phcenogamoiis Plants* 183 



possess stigmata sessilia only. Some few species belonging to 

 these families, as Lygeum and Zca^ possess an actual style. It 

 has always appeared singular to me that the same botanists 

 who, on the one hand, have advanced the position that the 

 styles offer the surest means of determining the number of the 

 carpels, because every carpel has its corresponding style, 

 should, on the other hand, have ascribed only one carpel to the 

 grasses, although they at the same time speak of several styles. 

 A true style occurs equally seldom in the majority of the i^i- 

 \m\y Etiphorbiacece ; indeed in Euphorbia, Ricinus, AndracJmc, 

 Crozophora, &c., in which more than one style ha^ been de- 

 scribed, there is either none at all, but merely stigmata sessilia 

 bifida, or only one style present, as for instance in Euphor^ 

 bia, in which three carpellary leaves are united superiorly 

 so as to form a tube, although a short one. We find the style 

 also to be deficient in most of the Alismaceco, Malvacece, 

 Phytolacea ; they possess only stigmata : in some of these 

 plants, for instance Ricinus and Phytolacca, the so-called sur- 

 face of the stigma sinks down with its papillas as far as the 

 basis of the carpeKleaves. It is equally incorrect to speak of 

 7'ami styli in the Composites, which are in fact only forms of 

 the double-lobed stigma. Hitherto litde more than a tradi- 

 tional meaning has been applied to the words style and stig- 

 ma, and this has been still more corrupted by means of pre- 

 tended logical distinctions. It will, however, be easily seen 

 that if botany is to be treated in a really scientific manner, 

 the terms must be based upon ideas, which being derived 

 from the nature of the vegetable structure, imply certain actual 

 organic differences, and can be adopted in a sense so strict as 

 to avoid the possibility of including the most various things 

 under the same term ; or on the other hand of separating iden- 

 tical organs by giving them different terms. The prosecution 

 of the inquiry into the process of development also very sim- 

 ply settles the old dispute as to whether the style possesses a 

 canal or not. Since each style is formed either by the rolling 

 together of a single leaf (apocarpous fruit, Lindl.) or through 

 the union of the edges of many leaves (syncarpous fruit, 

 Lindl.), it must always possess a canal, which certainly cannot 

 be always recognised as a cavity upon making a section of the 

 style in the open flower, since the internal layer of cellular 

 tissue ( Tissu conducteiir, Brongniart, properly speaking the 

 epidermis of the upper surface of the leaf,) becomes so ex- 

 panded through alteration in the form of the cells and the ex- 

 udation of mucus in the intercellular spaces, that the indivi- 

 dual cells become completely detached from their connection, 



