STRUCTURE OF THE OVARY 



229 



Now examine the ovary of STERCULIA, SIDA, GERA- 

 NIUM or OXALIS. When the fruit is ripe it splits 

 apart into its five (in MALPIGHIA three) 

 cells, and to each cell is attached a 

 style (or part of the style). In each 

 there are one or more seeds, so that 

 each corresponds to the whole ovary of 

 C^ESALPINIA. We may indeed look on 

 the ovary of these plants as being made 

 up of units, of which in (LESALPINIA 

 there is only one, in MALPIGHIA three, 

 in GOSSYPIUM three, and in SIDA, 

 STERCULIA, OXALIS, IMPATIENS and 

 GERANIUM five. This unit is named 

 a carpel, and is here, and in most 

 flowers, a closed organ, having ovules 

 arranged inside on a placenta, along one 

 edge, and more or less prolonged outside 

 upward into a style. When several 

 carpels compose the ovary, they are 

 united by their placental edges. 



Cut open an ordinary Chilli fruit 

 we find that it is two-celled at the 

 base, and one-celled at the top and 

 the placentas to which the seeds are 

 attached, are on either side of the partition in the 

 lower part, but on the sides of the fruit in the upper 

 (fig. 50). 



We may explain this on the hypothesis that the 

 ovary is composed of two carpels, by supposing the 

 carpels to be quite closed in their lower half, but 

 open along their placental edges in the upper. 



FIG. 50 



Fruit of 



CAPSICUM the 



Chilli 

 cut open 



