THE COMPOUND PISTIL. 295 



558. "WTien the styles are separate towards the summit, but 

 united below, they are usually described as a single organ ; -which 

 is said to be parted, cleft, hhed, &c., according to the extent of cohe- 

 sion. Tliis language was adopted, as in the case of leaves ('281) 

 and floral envelopes (462), long before the real structure Avas under- 



csis of Sclilciden, Endlichcr, and others. According to this new view, since buds 

 regularly arise from tiie axils of leaves and from the extremity of the stem or 

 axis, and only in some exceptional and abnormal cases from the margins or 

 surface of leaves, so ovules, which are viewed as a form of buds, are considered 

 to arise from the reccjitacle, either from the axis of the flower, like terminal 

 buds, or from the axils of the carpellary leaves, like axillary buds. Thus, 

 placentiB are supposed to belong to the stem, and not to the car])ellary leaves ; 

 and a one-celled ovary, with one or more ovules arising from the base of the 

 cell, would nearly represent the typical state of the gynKcium. This theory, 

 which the intelligent student m.ay easily apply in detail, offers a ready explana- 

 tion of free central placcntation, especially in such cases as Primula, &c., where 

 not a trace of dissepiments is ever discoverable. But in Caryophyllaceaj the 

 dissepiments are often manifest. In applying it to ordinary central placcnta- 

 tion, we have to suppose the cohesion of the inflexed margins of the carpellary 

 leaves with a central ]iro]ongation of the axis or rcce]itacle which beai-s the 

 placcntaj. But in parietal placcntation, the advocates of this theory are driven 

 to the violent supposition that the axis divides within the compound ovary into 

 twice as many branches as the carpels in its composition, and that these branches 

 regularly adhere, in pairs, one to each margin of all the carpellary leaves. Its 

 application is attended with still greater difficulties in the case of simple and 

 uncombined pistils, where the ovules occupy the whole inner suture, which must 

 be taken as the typical state of the gynrecium ; but to which the new liypothesis 

 can be adapted only by supposing that an ovuliferous branch of the axis enters 

 each carpel, and separates into two parts, one cohering with each margin of the 

 metamorphosed leaf. This view, however, not only appears absurd, but may 

 be disproved by direct observation, as it has been most completely by those 

 monstrosities in Avhich an anther is changed into a pistil, or even one part of 

 the anther is thus transformed and bears ovules, while the other, as well as the 

 filament, remains unchanged ; — a case where the ovules are far removed from 

 anything which can possibly belong to the axis. We may further remark, that 

 even the appearance of a placenta or ovuliferous body in the apparent axil of a 

 carpellary leaf no more proves that the body in question belongs to the axis, 

 than that tiie appendage before the petals of Parnassia and the American Lin- 

 den represents a branch instead of a leaf. As to the terminal naked ovule of 

 the Yew, where the structure, on any vieAv, is reduced to the greatest jwssiblc 

 simplicity, it is surely as probable that it answers to the earliest formed, or 

 foliar, portion of the ultimate phyton, here alone developed, as to the cuuline part, 

 which so seldom appears in the flower. The most important of these points 

 are elucidated by Mr. Brown, in Plants Javanicm Rariores, pp. 107-112, in 

 two notes, Avhich apparently are not sufficiently studied by botanists. 



