THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



its own, and remain distinct throughout. Between the 

 ovary and the summit extends the Style, a tube con- 

 necting the ovary with the Stigma. These latter vary 

 in form, dependent upon whether the pollen is to be 

 brought by the wind as fine dust, or whether it is to 

 be transported by insects, or some similar means, in the 

 shape of sticky lumps of coherent granules in the 

 one case forming flat, button-formed nodules, in other 

 cases it arises above the stamens and terminates in a 

 rod-like extension, which may be straight, bent, or 

 contorted, on the surface of which a moist area is 

 exposed, upon which the pollen falls and adheres. 

 Various and complex devices exist by which the 

 stigma may remove from an insect or bird the pollen 

 with which it may be loaded, and which it had 

 gathered from the anthers when seeking honey or 

 other food in the same or in a different flower. The 

 stigma connects through the style with the Ovary, 

 in which, attached to a prolongation of the style 

 the Placenta the ovula are formed. The ovary is 

 usually spherical, and if there is more than one 

 carpel the grooves on the outside coincide with the 

 junctions thereof. After the contact of the pollen 

 with the stigma, the ovula grow larger and finally 

 mature into seeds ; the ovary discharges them when 

 fully ripe by opening or bursting its enveloping 

 coats. 



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