March, 1902.] • Use of Some Common Botanical Terms. 217 



are altogether misleading. The typical flower i.s made up of four 

 sets of floral organs, as follows : 



TA ,-, , (I. Gvnoecium — composed of carpels. 



Fertile parts ... - , - , • ^ j r ^ 



^ (2. Androecium — composed or stamens. 



o, -1 . ( 3. Corolla — composed of petals, 



oteriie parts . . . ■, "^ ,~v 1 1 r 1 



^ (4. Calyx— composed or sepals. 



Gynoecium and androecium should simpl}- mean the house or 

 place in which the male and female plants live and thus the mis- 

 take will be avoided of implying sexuality to the carpels and 

 stamens. The term sterile should never be applied to a staminate 

 flower. It is mauifesth' absurd to continue to call a staminate 

 flower sterile when it produces a large number of microspores. 

 A sterile flower is one which has lost the power of spore repro- 

 duction. The term pistil is very misleading and should not be 

 used except for a gynoecium in which the carpels are completely 

 united. It would be better to not use it at all. The parts of any 

 cycle or whorl of the flower may be free or partly united or com- 

 pletely united and these conditions can be easily indicated without 

 a special terminology. The older terms in regard to the sym- 

 metry of the flower should be completely dropped and the newer 

 ones, which accord with mathematical conceptions, be used. 

 According to Barnes, stigma, style, and ovulary are the usual 

 parts of a carpel. Ovary should only be used for an egg- produc- 

 ing organ of the gametophyte. If the carpels are free the ovular- 

 ies are simple ; but for convenience, if the ovularies of a number 

 of carpels are united the entire structure may be called a com- 

 pound ovulary with so many loculi or cavities. The term cell is 

 to be used only in its cytological sense as the unit of plant struc- 

 ture. To speak of the cells of the ovulary or of the stamen when 

 the loculi are meant is misleading. 



The ovule is originally the megasporangium and produces one 

 or more megaspores. The microsporangia are borne on the stamens 

 and produce the microspores. The pollen grain and the embryo- 

 sac are the male and female plants of the gametophyte generation 

 of the seed plants, and develop from the microspore and mega- 

 spore, respectivel3^ A distinction must be made between the 

 microspore, which is a single cell, and the pollengrain, a several- 

 celled male gametophj'te ; also between the megaspore, a single 

 cell, and embryo-.sac, the female gametophyte. The pollentube 

 is not the male gametoph3'te, but only a part of that individual. 

 The entire structure, which develops from the microspore, is the 

 male gametophyte. The pollengrains should not ho. called pol- 

 lenspores, nor should the embryo-sac be called a megaspore. 

 Endosperm should be restricted to the Angiosperms and stand for 

 the tissue or cells which come from the definitive cell, and in such 



