35 



new genus Hoplitis, established by the distinguished Vienna 

 botanist, Mr. Endlicher, and the existence at the same time 

 of an extra carpcllary common seed-stalk is an additional 

 proof in support of my theory. 



And now I think that everv one must agree with me that 

 in the entire, extensive, and most natural family of the Um- 

 belliferse, that organ which the late Professor Hoffman called 

 Spermopodium, and which DeCandolle calls the Carpopho- 

 rum, is nothing else than the same extracarpellary common 

 seed-stalk. From the very close affinity even in the fruit 

 between the Saxifragacese and the UmbellifersB, it appears to 

 me that we may safely conclude that the base or lower point 

 of attachment of the carpels is in the same place as that of 

 the sepals, which, if the general opinion be followed, cover the 

 fruit, become connate with it and with each other ;* conse- 

 quently the next nodus of the prolonged axis, to which they are 

 suspended for some time at their maturity, emits laterally only 

 the partial seminal pedicels, and higher up the styles with their 

 thickened bases or stylopodia. But if we admit that the car- 

 pellary envelopes have their base at the same upper nodus of 

 the axis, and that like the seminal envelopes they are campy- 

 lotropous and pendulous, even then it would not follow that 

 the partial seminal pedicels proceed from the margin of the 

 carpellary leaves, as is asserted under the prevalent theory, 

 and not from the nodus of the axis, which latter is infinitely 

 more probable, and in many cases evident to the eye. 



In close alliance with the Umbelliferae is the family of 

 the Araliacese, and here we find two or more, even to twelve 

 monospermous carpels growing together by means of the 

 calyx which clothes them — and here withoutside of the closed 

 carpels we see the prolongation of the floral peduncle in the 

 form of a central axis emitting from an upper nodus the seeds 



* According to my ideas, the calyx of Umbelliferae, not ceasing to be supe- 

 rior in tbe female and hermaphrodite flowers, proceeds from that nodus of the 

 prolongation of the peduncle, from whence proceed also the styles with their 

 thickened basis or stylopodia, as well as the partial seminal pedicels. The 

 verticil of organs which covers the fruit I should consider as a kind of invo- 

 lucellum, a proof of which is furnished by the number of primary and 

 secondary juga of the fruit, which cannot be explained by the ordinary 

 theory; by the independence of this involucellum from the calyx in the 

 female flowers of Astrantia, and its great affinity to the involucellum in the 

 allied family of Dipsaceae. (See Seseli, Hippomarathrum, and Bupleurum 

 stellatum.) 



Maxj, F.— 1841. / 



