322 



MORPHOLOGY. 



With the so crowded structures and the many blendings of organs in 

 the flower, it was not easy to comprehend clearly the conditions de- 

 scribed in the paragraphs ; and of all the parts of the flower, these 

 structures have been the latest that we have come to understand. It 

 seems easiest to comprehend them when we place in parallel rows, side 

 by side, the various forms which the a*is assumes, as has been done in the 

 accompanying figures (figs. 181 192.). We here trace the axis from a 

 simple round swelling, through the flat disc, the concave disc, and until it 

 reaches the form of a vase, and this in three parallel series ; the first bear- 

 ing the entire blossom (figs. 181. 184. 187. 190.) ; another bearing ger- 

 mens, that is, carpels and seed-buds (figs. 182. 185. 188. 191.); and a third 

 simply bearing seed-buds, or immediately surrounding the cavity in 

 which the seed-buds occur (figs. 183. 186. 189. 192.). I know of no 

 form which would carry the first series further ; on the other hand, 

 the second and third are not properly completed without figs. 193. and 

 194. In the first of these (fig. 192.) the cup- shaped disk is carried up be- 



193 



194 



yond the upper part of a vase-shaped closed axial organ, in the form of 

 a new disc. By the extension of the same in fig. 194., on the contrary, 

 the part, which in the remaining members of the series is always formed 

 of the foliar organs, is here drawn within the circle of the axial 



198 Godetia Lefimanniana. Flower in vertical section, upper part. The shaded part 

 is the axial organ. From a to b is the inferior germen (fig. 192.); from b to c is the 

 superior cup-shaped disc (fig. 188.). This superior disc exhibits elegant projecting 

 portions, quite similar in kind to those on the inferior disc of Passiflora, only less deve- 

 loped. (See Plate III.) 



194 Epipactis latifolia. Vertical section through the flower, a, External ; I, internal 

 leaves of the perianth ; c, stamens; e, seed-huds; x, stigma. The shaded part is the 

 axial organ ; the under part, up to the insertion of a and b, is the inferior gerinen ; 

 the upper part is originally an androphore, then a gynophore ; but the carpels are 

 wholly abortive, and the axis itself forms the style with these last parts above a 

 and b 



