384 SCHLEIDEN'S THEORY. 



Lastly, in those plants in which the entire wall of the simple 

 ovary is occupied with ovules, we find the axis expanded 

 somewhat in the shape of a basin, as may also be seen in the 

 similar modification of the stalk in many Roseworts (Rosacese) 

 and in Figs. 



"We find moreover in nature, that in parietal placentae the 

 edges of the leaves are never laid upon one another throughout 

 their entire length, and so adhere to each other; but they 

 become united from below upwards, by the subsequent growth 

 of a more or less distinctly intermediate substance.* This 

 substance is very evident in Fumeworts (Fumariacese) and 

 Crucifers, in which it appears much later than the carpellary 

 leaves, stands exactly within them, and in the latter family 

 forms the spurious partition, by its gradual extension towards 

 the middle, and its subsequent adhesion. The placenta shows 

 itself to be independent of the carpellary leaves, during its 

 growth, most strikingly in the Abietese. My investigations of 

 the earliest conditions of those plants have shown me that the 

 organ which, since the researches of R. Brown, has been 

 considered as an open ovarium, is only a scale-like expanded 

 placenta : and that the organ which R. Brown has named 

 bractea is the actual carpellary leaf. This result has been 

 confirmed to me, in a most beautiful manner, by a cone of 

 Pinus alba, which upon the upper half was covered with 

 female, and upon the lower with male flowers. In the Abie- 

 tese, the placenta, left without the least constraint, developes 

 itself to such an extent, that at length the carpellary leaf 

 itself appears as a mere supplementary part." 



A translation of the earlier Russian Memoir of Schykoffsky 

 has been published in the Botanical Register, for 1840; from 

 which the following passage is extracted, to show the manner 

 in which the matter is treated by this ingenious author : 



" It may appear to many almost enigmatical, why De Can- 

 dolle, so zealous a searcher after truth, who from his nume- 

 rous services to science, could not run the least risk of any 

 taint to his fame by the recognition of a fault or of any 

 partial views, should not have taken up Richard, who, in the 

 6th Brussels edition of his Elemens de Botanique et de Physio- 

 logie vegetale, 1838, p. 136, says as follows : " Cette reunion, 



