THE ESSENTIAL ORGANS. 



47 



the stigmas. 3d. A partition dividing the cell of a single carpel 

 must be a, false one; as occurs in Flax (136). 4th. The PLA- 

 CENTAE, as well as the ventral suture, will be axial. 



133. Again: the carpels may each be open and conjoined by 

 their edges, as are the petals of a gamopetalous corolla. So it 

 is in the ovary of Violet (137) and Rock-rose (139). In this 

 case, 1st. There will be no partition (unless a false one, as in the 

 Crucifers), and but one cell ; 2d. The Placentae will be parietal, 

 i. e., on the wall of the cell (paries, a wall). 



134. Between the two conditions of axial (or central) and parietal placenta, we find an 

 degrees of transition, as illustrated in the different species of St. Johnswort and in 

 Poppy, where the inflected margins of the carpels carry the placentae inward, well-nigh 

 to the axis. Moreover, the placentae are not always mere marginal lines, but often wide 

 spaces covering large portions of the walls of the cell, as in Poppy and Water-lily : in 

 "ther cases, as Datura (168), they become large and fleshy, nearly filling the cell. 



139 



135. A free axial placenta, without partitions, occurs in some 

 compound one-celled ovaries, as in the Pink and Primrose orders 

 (133). This anomaly is explained in two ways first, by the 

 obliteration of the early formed partitions, as is actually seen to 

 occur in the Pinks ; secondly, by supposing the placenta to be, 

 at least in some cases, an axial rather than a marginal growth ; 

 that is, to grow from the point of the axis rather than from the 

 margin of the carpellary leaf, for in Primrose no partitions ever 

 appear. 



136. A few peculiar forms of the style and stigma are worthy of note in our narrow 

 limits, as the lateral style of Strawberry ; the basilar style of the Labiatse and Borrage- 

 worts ; the branching style of Emblica, one of the Euphorbiacese ; also the globuta. 



