74 MORPHOLOGY OF MALLOW-WORTS. [BOOK. i. 



many Viniferse, in the Myrsinese, &c., families which are 

 equally remarkable by the opposition of their stamens to the 

 petals, to which they are equal in number. M. Duchartre 

 mentions this example of the Myrsinese as exhibiting exactly 

 the symmetry of the Malvaceae, with this difference, that a 

 single stamen only corresponds to each petal. We do not 

 agree with him in this opinion, but think that in the 

 Myrsinese there are two whorls of stamens independent of 

 the corolla, the external or that alternating with the petal 

 being metamorphosed or abortive. This appears to be de- 

 monstrated by the flowers of Theophrasta, or better still by 

 Jacquinia. The author, arriving at the pistil of the Malvacere, 

 finds in their different genera variations which are sufficiently 

 considerable to establish four different categories, which he 

 successively examines. In the first the quinary symmetry is 

 at once apparent, and the five carpels differ but little in their 

 mode of development from the views and theories generally 

 adopted. In fact, we know that each carpel is considered as 

 a leaf folded on itself, and that numerous organogenic obser- 

 vations exhibit this organ to us in the form of a minute scale 

 which soon becomes concave internally, then tends more and 

 more to close up by the approximation of the borders of the 

 concavity, the adhesion of which completes the formation 

 of the ovary, and forms a perfectly closed cavity, in which 

 one or more ovules subsequently become developed. Now, 

 imagine five of these scales or plates soldered together by 

 their lateral surfaces, we then have the first condition of 

 the pistil of Hibiscus. That will be a small border having 

 five angles, which alternately project and recede internally ; 

 the projecting angles correspond to the borders of five carpels, 

 approximated in pairs, and these angles projecting more and 

 more, and converging, terminate by uniting, so as to form 

 a quinquelocular ovary. But at a still earlier period, before 

 the internal projections were marked, we had a pentagonal 

 border which soon becomes festooned by five tubercles, the 

 first indications of the styles. 



In a secondary category, Malope, for instance, we also 

 observe a pentagonal border, the five angles of which are 

 opposite to the petals, and consequently correspond to the 



