INFLORESCENCE AND FLOWERS FRUIT AND SEED. 125 



tudinally this cupule will be seen to consist of a ring of 

 tissue, arising from beneath the ovary, and with its 

 margin notched into scales. As the ovule enlarges 

 the minute scales become more numerous, new ones 

 arising at the inner margin of the up-growing cupule. 



A transverse section 

 across the female flower 

 at a slightly later period 

 shows that the inferior 

 ovary is divided into 

 three chambers (loctili), 

 each corresponding to 

 one of the lobes of the 

 stigma, and each con- 

 taining two ovules (Fig. 



34). These Ovules are in- FlG \ 33 r: A gup -of female flowers 



(slightly magnified). Each has a 



Serted at the upper part spreading stigma above and the 



of the inner angle of the co in s cu P u } e below '. an <J 



arises from the axil ot a pointed 



chamber, and thus hang bract. (Th. Hartig.) 

 down in pairs. A curious 



point arises here. It seems that at the period when the 

 female flower has just opened, but has not yet received 

 any pollen on its stigma, neither the ovules nor the 

 chambers are as yet formed, and the segments of the 

 perigone spring from the lower portion of the flower, 

 and this condition is not altered until pollination oc- 

 curs ; then the tissue below the stigma becomes the 

 three-chambered ovary sunk in the perigone. 



The pollination takes place in May-June, and ferti- 



