THE OVARY OF A POPPY. 43 
cohesion ovular outgrowths arise at intervals along its entire length. 
Such a leaf, producing in this way female organs of reproduction, 
is called a carpel, and the ovule-bearing region is known as the 
placenta. The ovule is usually borne on a stalk—the /unicle— 
which is the connecting cord between the parent and its egg, and 
serves as a channel for the conveyance of food and air to the young 
embryo during its growth within the embyro-sac. 
In tulips and lilies the ovaries are compound structures composed 
of three such carpels as we find in the pea, but instead of each 
carpel growing separate from its neighbour, as seen in our larkspurs 
and anemones, they cohere along their sides, forming a structure 
which, when cut across, shows that it has an internal arrangement 
of three cavities, or “cells,” with the ovules growing to the acute 
inner angle of each cavity. 
But we may have an ovary where the carpellary leaves are united 
after a different fashion. In violets and in the mignonette, for 
example, the ovaries are composed (usually) of three carpels each, 
yet, as may be easily seen, the structure is only one-celled. Here, 
however, it is evident that each carpellary leaf has not been folded 
in the ordinary manner, so as to form a separate cavity for its own 
ovules prior to the cohesion of the carpels among themselves, as 
was found in the lilies, but that the adjacent margins of neighbour- 
ing and but slightly curved or open carpellary leaves have become 
united, so as to form one large cavity common to all the carpels ; 
and that, therefore, each of the three somewhat swollen placentz 
seen on making a transverse section of the ovary of a pansy 
is formed by the cohering margins of two similar but individually 
distinct, carpellary leaves. 
In the poppy we have also a multi-carpellary ovary and one, too, 
where the arrangement of the carpels follows the same general plan 
found prevailing in the violets and mignonette. The carpels 
produced in each flower are, however, more numerous—ten being 
a common number—and each being just slightly curved and the 
whole ten being arranged circularly with the opposed sides or 
margins of neighbouring leaves cohering, as in the violets, we have, 
as a structural result, the formation of the characteristic oblong or 
sub-globular ovary of our type. The placente, which, as we have 
seen, are just slightly swollen in the mignonette, are in the poppy 
developed to an enormous extent. They stretch themselves out 
into the cavity of the ovary almost, if not quite, to the centre, 
forming a circle of vertical plates from the broad surfaces, of which 
the numerous ovules spring, so that in a thin transverse section of 
the whole organ, as has been made in the accompanying prepara- 
tion, there is clearly displayed, even to the unaided eye, the outer, 
or ovary wall of circular outline, with a number (ten or thereabouts) 
of radiating ovule-bearing bands, each attached by one end to the 
