VII. 1 



PISTIL. 



95 



to the midrib which we find in foliage-leaves. This line is 

 called the dorsal suture. 



The apex of the carpel is continued into the short style, 

 and terminates in the stigma, which withers before the Pea 

 is ripe. Each of the carpels in the other plants which we 

 have just examined presents the same features as the Pea. 

 Ranunculus differs only in the small size of the carpels, each 

 adapted to contain one small seed. 



Suppose, now, the three or five carpels of the pistil of 

 Monkshood, instead of being free from each other, had been 

 developed cohering to each other by their inner faces. The 

 consequence would have been that we should have had a 



Fig. 71. Transverse sec- 

 tion of a three-celled 

 Ovary, with axile pla- 

 centation and niultise- 

 riate indefinite ovules. 



Fig. 72. Transverse sec- 

 tion of a three-celled 

 Ovary, with axile pia- 

 centation. The ovules 

 biseriate. 



KiG. 73. Transverse 

 section of a two- 

 celled Ovary, with 

 axile placentation 

 & indefinite ovules. 



syncarpous pistil with a five-celled ovary. And syncarpous 

 pistils with five cells, or more than five cells (as Orange), 

 or fewer than five (as Lily), occur on every hand, and are 

 nearly always explicable in this way; that is, by the 

 cohesion of as many carpels as there are cells in the 

 syncarpous ovary. It follows, from this explanation of the 

 structure of a syncarpous ovary, that each of the divisions, 

 called dissepimejiis, by which syncarpous ovaries are sepa- 

 reted into distinct cells, must be double. They must each 

 necessarily consist of the two infolded and cohering sides 



