THE COMPOUND PISTIL. 20.> 



558. TFhen the styles are separate towards the stnrfmit, but 

 united below, they are usually described as a single organ ; which 

 is said to be parted, cleft, lobed, &e., according to the extent of cohe- 

 sion. This language was adopted, as in the case of leaves (281) 

 and floral envelopes (4G2), long before the real structure was under- 



csis of Sehlcidcn, Endlichcr, awl others. Aceouling to this new view, since buds 

 rcgulaily aiisc from the axils of leaves and fiom the extremity of the stem or 

 axis, and only in some exceptional and abnormal cases fiom the margins or 

 sin face of leaves, so ovnlcs, which are viewed as a form of buds, arc considered 

 to arise from the receptacle, cither from the axis of the flower, like terminal 

 buds, or fiom the axils of the carpcllaiy leaves, like axillary buds. Thus, 

 placentae arc supposed to belong to the stem, and not to the carpcllaiy leaves ; 

 and a onc-ccllcd ovaiy, with one or more ovules aiising fiom the base of the 

 cell, would nearly represent the typical state of the gynaicium. This thcoiy, 

 which the intelligent student may easily apply in detail, offeis a ready explana- 

 tion of free ccntial placcntation, especially in such cases as Piimula, &c, where 

 not a trace of dissepiments is ever discoverable. But in Caryophyllacem the 

 dissepiments are often manifest. In applying it to ordinary central placcnta- 

 tion, we have to suppose the cohesion of the indexed margins of the carpcllaiy 

 leaves with a central prolongation of the axis or receptacle which bears the 

 placental. But in parietal placcntation, the advocates of this theory are driven 

 to the violent supposition that the axis divides within the compound ovary into 

 twice as many branches as the carpels in its composition, and that these branches 

 regularly adhere, in pairs, one to each margin of all the carpcllaiy leaves. Its 

 application is attended with still greater difficulties in the case of simple and 

 uncombincd pistils, where the ovules occupy the whole inner suture, which must 

 be taken as the typical state of the gvnrccium ; but to which the new hypothesis 

 can be adapted only In supposing that an ovuliferous branch of the axis enters 

 each carpel, and separates into two parts, one cohciing with each margin of the 

 metamo. phosed leaf. This \icw, however, not only appears absurd, but may 

 be dispioved by direct observation, as it has been most completely by those 

 monstrosities in which an anther is changed into a pistil, or even one part of 

 the anther is thus transformed and bears ovules, while the other, as well as the 

 filament, remains unchanged ; — a case where the ovules are far removed from 

 anything which can possibly belong to the axis. We may further remark, that 

 even the appearance of a placenta or ovulifeious body in the apparent axil of a 

 carpcllaiy leaf no more pioves that the body in question belongs to the axis, 

 than that the appendage before the petals of Parnassia and the American Lin- 

 den represents a branch instead of a leaf. As to the terminal naked ovule of 

 the Yew, where the structure, on any view, is reduced to the greatest possible 

 simplicity, it is surely as probable that it answers to the earliest formed, or 

 foliar, portion of the ultimate phyton, here alone developed, as to the aniline part, 

 which so seldom appears in the flower. The most iinpoitant of these points 

 are elucidated by Mr. Biown, in Plantcc Jamiuuc linnorcs, pp. 107-112, in 

 two notes, which apparently are not sufficiently studied by botanists. 



