SECTION 10.] PISTILS. 105 



SECTION X. PISTILS IN PARTICULAR. 



1. ANOIOSPERMOUS OR ORDINARY GYNOSCIUM. 



300. Gyncecium is the technical name for the pistil or pistils of a 

 flower taken collectively, or for whatever stands in place of these. The 

 various modifications of the gyncecium and the terms which relate to 

 them require particular attention. 



301. THE PISTIL, when only one, occupies the centre of the flower; 

 when there are two pistils, they stand facing each other in the centre of 

 the flower ; when several, they commonly form a ring or circle ; and when 

 very numerous, they are generally crowded in rows or spirals on the sur- 

 face of a more or less enlarged or elongated receptacle. Their number 

 gives rise to certain terms, the counterpart of those used for stamens (284-), 

 which are survivals of the names of orders in the Linnsean artificial system. 

 The names were coined by prefixing Greek numerals to -gynia used for 

 gynoecium, and changed into adjectives in the form of -gynous. That is, a 

 flower is 



Monogynous, when it has a single pistil, whether that be simple or com- 

 pound ; 



Digynous, when it has only two pistils ; Trigynous, when with three ; 

 Tetragynous, with four ; Pentagynous, with five ; Hexagynous, with six ; 

 and so on to Polygynous, with many pistils. 



302. The Parts of a Complete Pistil, as already twice explained (16, 

 236), are the OVARY, the STYLE, and the STIGMA. The ovary is one es- 

 sential part: it contains the rudiments of seeds, called OVULES. The 

 stigma at the summit is also essential : it receives the pollen, which fer- 

 tilizes the ovules in order that they may become seeds. But the style, 

 commonly a tapering or slender column borne on the summit of the ovary, 

 and bearing the stigma on its apex or its side, is no more necessary to a 

 pistil than the filament is to the stamen. Accordingly, there is no style in 

 many pistils : in these the stigma is sessile, that is, rests directly on the 

 ovary (as in Fig. 326). The stigma is very various in shape and appear- 

 ance, being sometimes a little knob (as in the Cherry, Fig. 271), sometimes 

 a point or small surface of bare tissue (as in Fig. 327-330), and sometimes 

 a longitudinal crest or line (as in Fig. 324, 341-343), or it may occupy the 

 whole length of the style, as in Fig. 331. 



303. The word Pistil (Latin, Pistillum) means a pestle. It came into 

 use in the first place for such flowers as those of Crown Imperial, or Lily, 

 iu which the pistil in the centre was likened to the pestle, and the perianth 

 around it to the mortar, of the apothecary. 



304. A pistil is either simple or compound. It is simple when it answers 

 to a single flower-leaf, compound when it answers to two or three, or a 

 fuller circle of such leaves conjoined. 



