32 



undisputed affinity with bulbs, whether tunicate or squamate, 

 it is impossible not to admit the existence at the place in ques- 

 tion of several very short internodia. Agarclh himself, con- 

 sidering the fruit as a terminal bud, consisting in its simplest 

 form of one carpellary leaf with the seed-bearing stalk in its 

 axilla, does not by this view embrace the greater portion of 

 the phenomena. According to my observations in many 

 compound fruits, whether unilocular or plurilocular, with a 

 so called central or columnar placenta, there does not arise a 

 separate bud from the axilla of each carpellary leaf, but the 

 whole central support or common seed- stalk is the immediate 

 prolongation of the floral axis or peduncle, forming an inter- 

 nodium above the nodus from whence proceed the carpellary 

 leaves. It is then either covered with seeds dispersed with- 

 out any perceptible order, as in Primulaceae and Caryophyl- 

 laceae, or it forms at a greater or less height a special nodus 

 from whence one or two seeds descend into each cell of the 

 fruit, supported on distinct seminal pedicels, as in the Malva- 

 ceae with monospermous carpels, Phytolacca decandra, and all 

 Euphorbiaceae. In the latter family the seed-stem is already 

 almost free, that is, the margins of the carpellary leaves 

 scarcely adhere to it, and readily separate when ripe without 

 any laceration of the tissue. 



In the Boragineae the seed-stem as is known is entirely 

 free, or on the outside of four completely closed carpels ar- 

 ranged around on one horizontal plane. 



These closed carpels or caryopses have in their structure, 

 especially as regards their outer integuments, considerable 

 resemblance to those seeds which Mirbel* distinguishes 

 under the name of curved or campylotropous, inasmuch as 

 the aperture for the passage of the distinct portion in seminal 

 pedicels (Spermopodium mihi non Hoffm. Funiculus umbili- 

 calis auct.) is very near to the organic base of the carpellary 

 leaf, wherefore they are generally spoken of by descriptive 

 Botanists as Nuces basi perforates, and wherefore the error of 

 Linnaeus, who considered them as naked seeds, was excus- 

 able. Thus, in the genus Asperugo, each carpel has the 

 appearance of a free pendulous coccus, which the analogy 



* Nouvelles recherches sur le structure de F ovule vegetale et sur ses 

 developpemens. 1. Mem. 1828 p. 3. 



