4 THE JOURNAL OF INDIAN BOTANY. 



single carpel, there being no trace of other carpels, and that this car- 

 pel resembles in structure and appearance one of the three that make 

 up the tricarpellary pistil. In both cases the style is terminal and 

 the ovary orthotropous at the beginning. As development takes place 

 in the monocarpellary flower, one side of both ovary and ovule greatly 

 outgrows the other so that the micropyle of the anatropous ovule 

 faces the style, which appears to come from the base of the ovary. 

 In the polycarpellary flower, the conjunction with other carpels pre- 

 vents any one carpel bending to bring the style into a basal position. 

 But the ovule becomes bent in the same direction as in the terminal 

 flower, the funiculus being lifted and folded against the ovule by the 

 elongation of the common axis of the three carpels. The result is a 

 half-inverted or amphitropous ovule with the funiculus joining the 

 common axis about one-third the distance from its top, and with the 

 micropyle at the upper end and not far from the base of the style. It 

 will be seen that development in both cases keeps the micropyle near 

 the base of the style in the most favorable position for the ready 

 entrance of the pollen tube. 



The obturator, a mass of cells observed by Baillon (1) as growing 

 from the placenta toward the micropyle of certain Euphorbiacese, is 

 conspicuous here. We also observe the beak-like tip to the nucellus 

 which was noticed by Lyon (2) in Euphorbia corollata and by 

 Schweiger (3) and Weniger (4) in other species of Euphorbia. 



The difference in the shape of the ovary leads to interesting 

 differences between the terminal and lateral seeds. On the lateral 

 seed is a conspicuous white caruncle formed by the t\irgescence of the 

 outer coat and occupying mainly the space between the funiculus and 

 the micropyle. On the terminal seed, since the funiculus almost 

 touches the micropyle, there is almost no caruncle. On the other 

 hand its raphe is longer, extending the entire length of the seed. 



Ten seeds of each type were selected at random from five differ- 

 ent plants and were carefully measured. Those from terminal fruits 

 averaged 1.247 mm. long by 1.047 mm. wide, those from lateral fruits 

 averaged 1.447 mm. long by 1.115 mm. wide. The proportion of 

 length to width of the former lot is 1.2 : 1, that of the latter is 1.3 : 1. 

 It is also observable that the thickness of the terminal seed is about 

 equal to its breadth, while that of the lateral seed is considerably less 

 than its breadth. 



In the material examined two interesting sports were dis- 

 covered — one being a double flower of the terminal type occupying 

 a terminal position, and the other a similar flower occupying a 

 lateral position and lower down than other lateral flowers of the 

 usual type. 



