PISSCPHANE. 



PISSOPHANK, Mineral occurring amorphous. Colour pistachio, 

 asparagus, or olive green. Fracture conchoids! Harness 1-5. Very 

 fragile. Lustre vitreous. Transparent Specific gravity ! to 1"98. 

 It u found at Garnsdorf, near Saalfeld. Its analysis, by Erdmann, 



PISTIL. 



M 



Sulphuric Acid 

 Alumina 

 Peroxide of Iron 

 WaUr 



LMM 



9789 



HI :. 



PI8TACIA, a genui of P'lauts belonging to the natural order 

 Amatanliatttr. It hat decodoiis, apetalous flowers. The male 

 flower* with the raceme amentaceous, with 1 -flowered bracts ; calyx 

 5-clefl; stamens 5; anthen subaessile, 4-cornered, Female flowers 

 with the raceme more lax ; calyx 3-4-cleft ; ovary 1-3-celled ; stigmas 

 3, rather thick. Drupe dry, ovate, with a somewhat bony nut, usually 

 1 -seeded and 1 -celled. Seeds solitary, each without albumen. 



P. vero, a small tree, or large bush, from IS to 20 feet high ; its 

 learn are alternate, unequally pinnated, without stipules, and consist 

 of from S to 5 oral blunt leathery smooth leaflets. The flowers are 

 onall, and arranged in short branched racemes from the old wood ; 

 some are male and others female ; the latter are succeeded by dry 

 drupes about the size of an olive, of a reddish colour, with a very thin 

 rind, a brittle 2-valved shell, and contain a single almond-like seed 

 with a green embryo. The tree is originally from Asia Minor, but is 

 now naturalised all over the South of Europe, where the fruit is in 

 request for confectionary and for the dessert, under the name of 

 Pistachio Nuts. 



I'alacia rrra. 

 1, a male flower ; J, a female ; S, a ripe fruit ; 4, a ceU cut transversely. 



P. Tmbmlhtu is a native of Syria and the Greek Archipelago, a 

 smaller plant than the last, but much like it 



P. Ltntiiciu is a bush found on the coasts of the Mediterranean. 

 The leaves are evergreen, equally pinnate ; leaflets 8 to 12, usually 

 alternate, with the exception of the two upper, which are opposite, 

 oval, lanceolate, obtuse, often mucronate, entire, and perfectly smooth. 

 Flowrra very small, in axillary panicles, similar to those of the other 

 specie* ; fruits very small, pea-shaped, reddish when ripe. The sweet 

 fragrant stimulent resin called .Vtuticli is obtained from the trunk by 

 tootsioos made in the month of August It is used to strengthen and 

 preserve the teeth and in diarrhoea. [MASTICH, in ARTS AND So. Dry.] 



PISTIACE^E, Lemnadt, or Duck Weeds, a natural order of Endo- 

 genous Plants. The species are floating or land plants with very 

 cellular, lenticular, or lobed fronds or leaves, some of them wholly 

 destitute of spiral vessels, except perhaps in the pistil The flowers 

 appearing from the margin of the fronds 2 or 3, naked, inclosed in a 

 spathe, but without a spadlx. In the male flowers the stamens are 

 definite, often monadelphous : in the female flowers the ovary is 

 1 -celled, with one or more erect ovules ; style short, stigma simple, 

 ovules anatropal, bemianatropal, or atropal. Fruit membranous or 

 capsular, not opening, one or more seeded ; seeds with a fungous testa 

 and a thickened indurated foramen ; embryo either in the axis of 

 fleshy albumen and having a lateral cleft for the emission of the 

 plumule, or at the apex of the nucleus, covered in by a hardened 

 eodostome. 



The common Duck-Weed Lcmna may be regarded as the most 

 simple of all Phsenogamous Plants. It inhabits the ditches of the 

 oooUr parts of the world. [LuiSA.] Pinia is found in the tropics ; 

 AmtrvmU in the basin of the Mediterranean. 



P. itratoita grows in water -tanks in Jamaica, where, according to 

 Brown, it is acrid, and in hot dry weather impregnates the water with 

 its particles so as to become injurious. There are tf genera and 20 

 species in this order. 



(Lindley, Vegetable Kingdom.) 



PISTIL, the name applied to the changed leaves called Carpels, 

 which are found in the centre of the flower. This part ultimately 

 becomes the Fruit [FRUIT.] The term pistil is applied to these 

 organs, whether there is but one or many of them, or whether they 

 are united or separate. The carpel consists of three parts : the Ovary 

 or germen, generally of a spherical form, and hollow, containing the 

 ovules; the Style, an elongated organ, formed of a continuation of 

 the tissue of the ovary, possessing a canal in communication with the 

 interior of the ovary ; and the Stigma, which is the point or summit 

 of the style. The carpels, like all other parts of the flower, are 

 modifications of the leaf, and examples of their reversion to their 

 normal form are not unfrequent This is well seen in the double 

 cherry, in which the pistil often appears as a little leaf in the centra 

 of the flower. The blade of the leaf corresponds to the ovary of the 

 carpel ; the midrib, which is elongated, to the style ; and the stigma 

 is nothing more than a secreting surface at the point of the style, 

 communicating with the interior of the ovarial leaf. The carpel 

 presents two sutures, called dorsal and ventral The first of these 

 corresponds with the midrib of the leaf, and the latter with the 

 folded margins. The ventral suture is always opposite the axis of 

 the plant, and is the point from which tho Placenta is developed, to 

 which the young ovules are attached. 



When there is only one carpel in the flower, it is called a simple 

 pistil ; but when there are several carpels, they are called a compound 

 pistil The carpels of a compound pistil may be either united or 

 separate. When they are united, they are called by Lindley Syn- 

 carpous. This union may occur between the ovaries only, leaving the 

 styles distinct, as in Nigella damcucena; or the ovaries, styles, 

 stigmas, and all may be united, forming one body, as in the tulip. 

 When the carpels are all separate, as is seen in Caltha, Ranunculi*, 

 &c., the pistil is said to be apocarpous. 



The Pistil is either superior or inferior. When it is placed on the 

 receptacle on the same plane or above the other organs of the flower 

 it-is called superior. It frequently however contracts a union with 

 the parts of the calyx, or it sinks into the receptacle, and the calyx 

 and corolla are placed above it ; it is then called inferior. 



The structure of the pistil differs according to the modes of its 

 origin. Like every newly forming part of a plant, it consists originally 

 of uniform delicate parenchyma, in which an epithelium on both the 

 outer and inner surfaces is distinguishable. Gradually, but some- 

 times not till a late period, or in certain cases not at all, the vascular 

 bundles are organised from the parenchyma | in the single carpel 

 there is usually one main bundle, corresponding with the central rib 

 of the leaf, and two others at the edges of the leaf; in inauy- 

 membered 1 -celled germens, the latter are frequently wanting. In 

 rare cases the vascular bundles are ramified in the same way as in the 

 leaf, which indeed is the natural consequence of their morphological 

 import, since germeu and style correspond to the sheath and petioles 

 which are supplied with only a few vascular bundles. The stamen 

 on the other hand corresponds to the lamina, and is so imperfectly 

 developed that in most instances it contains no vascular bundles. In 

 a few cases, interesting modifications of cellular tissue are presented in 

 the interior of the germen ; yet oil-passages or vittao [UMBELUFKRA:], 

 milk-vessels, and cells containing crystal, &c., occur here and there. The 

 external epithelium of the outer surface is commonly soon changed 

 into epidermis, which often exhibits stomates, and under this the 

 parenchyma is somewhat lax and almost spongy. The surface of the 

 germen exhibits all the various appendages of young epidermis, hairs, 

 prickles, glands, &c. The formation of the epithelium of the inner 

 surface is more important ; it is sometimes developed with the next 

 subsequent layers into a true epidermis, but only in the cavity of the 

 gormen, as in I'aaijlora and some Crucifcne. On the stigma it in 

 converted, either partially or entirely, into papilla-, as it also is some- 

 times in the canal of the style, if this is distinctly hollow ; and in 

 the cavity of the germen along the placenta;, as far as the ovules, 

 where the papilla: frequently become long hairs. All these papilla; 

 commonly secrete at the time of the perfecting of the pistil an 

 adhesive substance, containing gum or sugar, the stigmatic fluid. A 

 similar substance is frequently secreted in tho intercellular spaces of 

 the cellular layers lying immediately beneath the epithelium of the 

 stigma and the styles, and often so copiously that tho cells are 

 loosened from their union with one another, and lie loosely imbedded 

 in this mucilaginous semi-fluid matter. The process may be easily 

 followed in the Orchidaccce and the Oaagracece. 



The Style is not at all essential to the existence of the carpel, and 

 is frequently absent When present, it is composed of just the same 

 tissues as the ovary, which in most cases consist of vascular surrounded 

 by cellular tissue. The style varies in form and size ; sometimes it in 

 flat, as in the Iru and Gonna, but is mostly cylindrical and filiform. 

 It generally proceeds from the apex of the ovary, but in some cases, 

 from an alteration in the position of the ovary, it proceeds from 

 other parts besides the apparent apex, as from the side in Alchemilla, 

 and from the base in Lamiacue and Eorayinacta. The length of the 



