314 



THE FLOWER. 



[BOOK i. 



Euphorbia, all Teazelworts (Dipsacacese), many Composites, 

 and some Trefoils, particularly my Trifolium cyathiferum, 

 in all which the bracts are accurately verticillate, and their 

 margins confluent, as in a true calyx. 



4. Of the Flower. 



" For a long time," says Schykoffsky, " a false opinion pre- 

 vailed amongst Botanists, that the whole flower was but one 

 organ, and even now that according to the latest theories 

 the flower contains many organs more or less symmetrically 

 arranged, they consider the place from whence proceed the 

 sepals, the petals, the stamens, and the pistils, as a terminal 

 nodus, whereas, by the undisputed affinity with bulbs, 

 whether tunicate or squamate, it is impossible not to admit 

 the existence at the place in question of several very short 

 internodia. Agardh himself, considering the fruit as a 

 terminal bud, consisting in its simplest form of one carpellary 

 leaf, with the seed-bearing stalk in its axilla, does not by 

 this view embrace the greater portion of the phenomena. 

 According to my observations in many compound fruits, 

 whether unilocular or plurilocular, with a so-called central 

 or columnar placenta, there does not arise a separate bud 

 from the axilla of each carpellary leaf, but the whole central 

 support, or common seed- stalk, is the immediate prolongation 

 of the floral axis or peduncle, forming an internodium above 



