360 STYLE COLLECTOBS. [BOOK i. 



plants, are separate from the placenta, and are merely pressed 

 down upon it, so as to cover the ovules, thus confirming the 

 accuracy of the views concerning placentation held by 

 Schykofsky and Schleiden. Upon that supposition the upper 

 part of the style, and the stigmas, were assumed to be the 

 naked apex of the placenta, prolonged beyond the carpellary 

 leaves. The consequence of that hypothesis was, that the 

 conducting tissue of the style would be, in most cases, an 

 extension of the placenta. That being admitted, the indusium 

 of Goodeniads, and, a fortiori, the well known rim found 

 upon the stigma in Heathworts (Ericaceae) would be the 

 expanded end of the carpellary leaves, while the stigma of 

 those plants is also the upper end of their placenta. To 

 this I might have added Cranesbills (Geraniacese), in which 

 the carpellary part of the style hardens and rolls up, eventually 

 leaving the prolongation of the placenta as a distinct beak. 

 Such examples certainly justify the assertion that, in numerous 

 cases, the style is formed by the matter of the placenta. 

 Griffith seems to have entertained some similar idea when, 

 in his treatise on Loranthus, &c. in the Linnaan Transactions, 

 vol. xix., he spoke of the " intimate relations between the 

 placenta and stigmatic canal/' 



The surface of the style is commonly smooth ; but in Com- 

 posites, Bellworts (Campanulacese) and others, it is often 

 closely covered with hairs, called collectors, which seem as if 

 intended as brushes to clear the pollen out of the cells of the 

 anthers. In Lobelia these hairs are collected in a whorl 

 below the stigma. In Goodeniads the style expands at its 

 upper end into a cup, or indusium, surrounding the stigma. 

 (Plate V. fig. 13. b.}. Many styles which appear to be 

 perfectly simple, as for instance those of the Primrose, the 

 Lamium, the Lily, or the Borage, are in reality composed of 

 several grown together ; as is indicated by the lobes of their 

 stigma, or by the number of cells or divisions of their ovary. 

 In Malva an example may be seen of a partial union only of 

 the styles, which are distinct upwards, but united below. In 

 speaking of styles in this latter state, botanists are accustomed 

 to describe them as divided in differ ent ways, which is 

 manifestly an inaccurate mode of expression. 



