288 THE FLOWKR. 



rated from the line to which the ovules are attached only hy the 

 thickness of the walls : it is nearly the same in our Sehizandra 

 (Fig. 490), another plant of the Magnolia family. The style some- 

 times proceeds from the side, or even from near the apparent hase 

 of the ovary; as in the Strawberry (Fig. 428). 



540. When the pistil is single, or when several coalesce into one, it 

 will necessarily terminate the axis, and appear to be a direct con- 

 tinuation of it. When there are two pistils in the flower, they al- 

 ways stand opposite each other (so that if they coalesce it is by 

 their inner faces) ; and are either lateral as respects the flower, that 

 is, one on the right side and the other on the left, in a plane at right 

 angles to the bract and axis (444), as in the Mustard family, the 

 Gentian family, and a few others ; or, more commonly, anterior and 

 posterior, one before the axis and the other before the bract of the 

 axillary flower. When they accord in number with the sepals or 

 petals, they are either opposed to or alternate with them ; and the 

 two positions in this respect are sometimes found in nearly related 

 genera, so as to baffle our attempts at explaining the cause of the 

 difference. In Pavonia, for example, the five pistils are opposite 

 the petals ; in Malvaviscus and Hibiscus, alternate with them. In 

 Sida (when five) they stand opposite the petals ; in Abutilon, opposite 

 the sepals. 



541. Pistils occur under such a diversity of forms, and exhibit 

 such various complications, that the plan of their structure and the 

 distinction between simple and compound pistils require to be well 

 understood. Commencing, therefore, with the mot natural forms, 

 and proceeding gradually to the more complex or disguised, we first 

 consider 



542. The Simple Pistil, and the way in which it answers to a loaf. 

 A simple pistil answers to a single leaf. A compound pistil answers 

 to two or more leaves combined, just as a monopetalous corolla 

 answers to two or more petals, or leaves of the flower, united into 

 one body. As to its morphology, the botanist regards a simple 

 pistil as consisting of the blade of a leaf, curved inwards until its 

 margins meet and unite, forming in this way a closed case, or pod, 

 which is the ovary. So that the upper face of the altered leaf 

 answers to the inner surface of the ovary, and the lower, to its 

 outer surface. And the ovules are borne on what answers to the 

 united edges of the leaf. The tapering summit, rolled together 

 and prolonged, forms the style, when there is any ; and the edges 



