226 



In this case both hu and bi are covered with ovules, 

 numerous in bu, only a few with bi. Tlie striking feature 

 of tlie case is that bu and bi hâve grown together thus 

 forming a kind of closed ovary with two pariétal placentas. 

 Only bu has a strongly developed style with stigma. In 

 this cases the transformation of a stamen into a pistil 

 has attained its height, the more striking as the filament 

 has almost disappeared and the pistilloid stamen stands 

 on the same level as its more perfect prototype. For dif- 

 férences between model and imitation distinctly persist. 

 But which are the carpels now? Judging from the pla- 

 centation it must be admitted that bu and bi do not cor- 

 respond to the carpels, but are to be considered as con- 

 sisting of two différent halves as e. g. the valves of the 

 capsule of the pansy. 



According to this conception it would be the thecae 

 having been transformed into carpels and the anther con- 

 sequently comparable to two leaves! In the life-time of 

 Agardh and Endlicher this conclusion would certainly 

 hâve found a ready acceptance, for as von M o h 1 calls to 

 mind in his „Vermischte Schriften", already cited, it was 

 those famous botanists, who looked upon the filament as 

 an axial formation producing two opposed leaves. 



Hugo von Mohl') who together with ail the other 

 botanists of his time had manifested himself as an adhè- 

 rent of Goethe's doctrine of metamorphosis, opposed 

 Agardh's and Endlicher's opinion, remarkably enough 

 appealing to the very subject now under discussion, viz. 

 pistillody of stamens. He argued that if a pistil can pass 

 into a stamen and a stamen into a pistil and the latter 

 must needs be considered as a leaf, a stamen must ne- 

 cessarily itself be of foliaceous origin. 



The plants used by von Mo h 1 for his argument are 



1) 1. c. p. 32. 



