OUTLINE OF STRUCTURAL BOTANY 29 
to the remainder of the flower. When the petals and the stamens 
are united with the calyx at its base, appearing to rise from it, 
whether the calyx adheres or not to the ovary the flower is said to 
be perigynous (Fig. 39.) 
These few technical words are introduced here because they 
occur so frequently in botanical literature and the characters are 
so important from the point of view of describing the flower that 
the student of plants even if he proposes to interest himself only 
as an amateur should carry these terms in his mind. 
Before leaving the description of the flower we must not fail 
to call attention to some characteristics of the inner whorls, the 
pistils and the stamens. On a knowledge of these characteristics 
much depends in the identification of a plant by means of its 
flower. 
THE PISTIL, 
The pistil or pistils occupy, as we have seen, the central portion 
of the typical flower. (Fig. 42.) At the basal part of each pistil 
is the distended portion containing the ovules, destined to become 
the seeds, and this distended portion is known as the ovary. This 
wih 
39 
Fic. 38—Diagram of a flower in which the corolla and stamens are hypogynous, 
i. e., situated below the ovary. 
Fic. 39—Diagram of a flower in which, although the corolla is inserted below the 
ovary, the stamens are inserted on the corolla, above the ovary. The stamens are 
perigynous. 
1G. 40—Corolla and stamens inserted above the ovary, epigynous. 
ovary may consist of a single enclosure or carpel or it may be par- 
titioned into several compartments or cells. 
The ovules are found in these compartmens or cells as they are 
called but the part of the cell to which they may be attached differs 
‘in different plants. Thus, in our buttercup the single ovule is at- 
tached to the side of the single cell of the carpel. (Fig. 41.) 
In other flowers a column rises through the center of the ovary 
and about this the ovules are arranged. In still others, the ovules 
are attached to the partitions which divide ‘the ovary into com- 
partments and in still other cases they are attached to the ridges 
which represent unfinished partitions. The adjoining figures 
illustrate some of the methods of arrangement of the ovules and 
the character of the cells or locules of the ovaries. (Figs. 43, 44.) 
