94 PISTIL. [CHAP. 



But garden Larkspur, Monkshood, and Star Anise 

 furnish good connecting links between 

 the Ranunculus and Pea ; for in these 

 plants you find the carpels larger than 

 in Ranunculus, but fewer in number, 

 varying from one to fifteen, and stand- 

 ing in a whorl around the centre of 

 Fig. 70. Star Anise (////r/«w). the flowcr. Each Carpel of the pistil 



The fruit apocarpous. Car- r • .\. c x^ ^i ^ ^ 



pels uniseriate, dehiscing by of Cither of thcsc thrcc plants aus wcrs 



their ventral sutures. ^ .1 • . m • . • r i 



to the pistil, consisting of one carpel, 

 of the Pea. In all of these plants the pistil is apocarp- 

 ous ; the carpels, however, differ in number, as well as 

 in the number of ovules which they contain, and in their 

 mode of opening when ripe {dehiscence) to allow the seeds 

 to escape. 



Observe that in Larkspur, Monkshood, and Star Anise 

 the ovules and seeds are borne upon the inner angle of the 

 carpels ; the same in the Pea ; and the inner angle of the 

 carpels coincides with the axis of the flower. 



Now ovules are, as a rule, marginal buds (the nature and 

 relation of which to ordinary leaf-buds is not yet well 

 understood), that is, they are borne upon margins of car- 

 pellary leaves; so we may conclude that the inner angle 

 of each carpel, upon which the seeds are arranged, answers 

 to the line of union of its infolded edges. This line is called 

 the ventral stiture. 



To take the Pea again as the simplest case — if you split 

 it carefully open up the edge bearing the seeds, you will 

 find, when laid open, that half of the seeds are on one edge, 

 half on the other ; each margin being alternately seed-bear- 

 ing. Up the middle of the opened carpel you have a strong 

 line or nerve (the outer angle when the carpel was closed), 

 which is, simply, the midrib of the carpellary leaf, answering 



