INFLORESCENCE AND FLOWERS—FRUIT AND SEED 125 
‘cup’ in which the ‘ acorn’ is inserted (fig. 34, m). IRf 
the young female flower is carefully bisected longitudi- 
nally this cupule will be seen to consist of a ring of 
tissue, arising from beneath the ovary, and with its 
margin notched into scales. As the ovule enlarges 
the minute scales become more numerous, new ones 
arising at the inner margin of the up-growing cupule. 
A transverse section 
across the female flower 
at a slightly later period 
shows that the inferior 
ovary is divided into 
three chambers (loculz), 
each corresponding to 
one of the lobes of the 
stigma, and each con- 
taining two ovules (fig. 
34) . These ovules are Fig. 33.—A group of femaie flowers 
inserted at the upper (slightly magnified). Each has a 
g spreading stigma above and the 
part of the inner angle commencing cupule below, and 
f 4h nk a arises from the axil of a pointed 
of the chamber, an bract. (Th. Hartig.) 
thus hang down in 
pairs. A curious point arises here. It seems that at 
the period when the female flower has just opened, 
but has not yet received any pollen on its stigma, 
neither the ovules nor the chambers are as yet formed, 
and the segments of the perigone spring from the lower 
portion of the flower, and this condition is not altered 
until pollination occurs; then the tissue below the 
