318 MORPHOLOGY. 



we must distinguish first of all axial and foliar organs, and then in- 

 dependent organs and mere appendages and excrescences of particular 

 organs. In all these parts it may, and sometimes does, happen, that a 

 part of the surface does not develope epidermis, and secretes a sac- 

 charine or often other kind of juice. Neither the wholly subordinate 

 and always accidental condition of structure, nor the function, and this 

 least of all, justifies the assumption of its being a special organ. To 

 define nectaries according to form has not been attempted, and would, 

 indeed, be an impossibility. I reject the term from morphology, as alto- 

 gether useless. 



A. OF THE AXIAL ORGANS OF THE FLOWER. 



146. There are very few flowers of so simple a structure that 

 they consist only of one simple essential part, so that no formation 

 of internodes is possible within the flower ; and the extremity of 

 the pedicels immediately supports the floral parts existing. This 

 is the case in the male flower of the Euphorbia, where the end 

 of a pedicel bears one single stamen ; also in the male flower of 

 the Abietinece, where one single foliar organ, converted into a 

 stamen, constitutes the entire flower : it is the case in the female 

 flower Taxus, where the small pedicel, clothed with bracts, ter- 

 minates immediately in the naked seed -bud. In the generality of 

 flowers, however, several parts are united which do not stand at 

 equal heights on the axis, and thus more or fewer internodes take 

 part in the structure of the flower. The original condition of the 

 internodes, the undeveloped, is here also most frequently perma- 

 nent ; and the pedicel, after the detachment of all the parts of 

 the flower, frequently ends in a small, slightly thickened knot, 

 which represents the collective internodes of the flower in undeve- 

 loped condition, the simple base or receptacle of the flower (torus). 

 Examples in which individual internodes become elongated are 

 rather rare. I am not acquainted with any case where this occurs 

 between the floral envelopes, but in some families they are elon- 

 gated between the inner floral envelopes and the stamens (andro- 

 phorum), and between the stamens and the gerinen (gynophorum). 

 The latter is generally termed germen stipitatum. There are 

 examples of both in the Passiflorce and the Capparidece. 



A considerably longer part, without elongation of the indi- 

 vidual intern odes, frequently occurs as a gynophore in flowers 

 which contain many germens (as in the Rosacece, the Ranuncu- 

 lacece, Magnoliacece, &c. Again, the gynophore is often presented 

 as a hemispherical or cushion-like part, as in some other Rosacecs 

 and RanunculacecB ; a very rare form of it is that of a reversed 

 cone, which bears the germens upon a base turned upward, as in 

 Nelumbium. In the rarest instances, with the exception of this 

 case, the axis of the flower is elongated within the floral parts, 

 even without ending as a germen ; but this does sometimes occur 

 as in the male flowers of some Palms and other plants ; for ex- 



