102 FOLIAR NATURE OF CARPEL [CH. 



by a common Pea, the fruit of which is the well-known 

 pod (Legume) so characteristic of all these plants. Here 

 the centre of the flower produces one terminal carpel, the 

 leaf-like texture, venation, colour and even shape of which 

 indicate its nature : it corresponds to a more or less 

 oblong leaf, folded on the midrib and the margins brought 

 together in front, so that the minute young ovules the 

 future seeds are boxed in. 



Exactly the same state of affairs can be traced in the 

 flower of a Plum, Cherry, Almond, or other member of 

 the genus Prunus, only here the carpel is apt to be 

 smaller and it only contains one ovule. In the flowering 

 White Cherry of the gardens, indeed, the leaf-nature of 

 the carpel is so dominant, that it usually unfolds more or 

 less as an ordinary green foliage-leaf and bears no ovules 

 i.e. it becomes barren. 



If, now, we carefully examine the young pod the 

 folded single carpel of a Pea, &c., we find, first, that its 

 midrib is turned outwards, or away from the axis, and is 

 termed the dorsal suture : while its inner conjoined edges 

 are. turned towards the central axis and form what is 

 termed the ventral suture. The word suture, or seam, 

 was suggested to the older botanists because they were 

 taken with the notion of these edges being brought 

 together and fastened, so to speak, as if sewn up : a very 

 superficial way of looking at the matter. 



It will be found further that the ovules are attached 

 to the ventral suture, a fact anyone can verify by splitting 

 open a green pea-pod. 



At the apex of this closed box, or young pod, the tip 

 of the carpel is drawn out, as it were, to a short stalk-like 

 process termed the style, and on the end of this style is a 

 small surface which receives the pollen from the stamens, 

 and is called the stigma. 



