PHANEROGAMIA : FLOWERS. 369 



another, by the outer surfaces which are in contact. Thus is 

 formed an apparently simple but many-membered pistil (p. sim- 

 plex, polymernm). This coherence may extend to the entire pistil, 

 as in Apocynacece ; or it may only extend to the germen and style ; 

 or only to the germen itself; from which may proceed either a 

 simple germen, with a simple style and several stigmas (as in 

 Geraniacece), or no styles but several stigmas (as in Phytolacca), 

 or a simple germen with several pistils and several stigmas (as in 

 Buxus). It is very unusual for the germens and pistils to remain 

 separated, and only the stigmas to be coherent ; but this occurs in 

 the Asclepiadacece. In all these cases, the germen is called many- 

 celled (plurilocularis). The cells (loculd) are divided by septa 

 (dissepimenta) 9 which, by reason of their origin, are double, and 

 of course alternate with the carpels, and, consequently, with the 

 stigmas. Occasionally the production of false partitions occurs 

 here by the growth inward of cellular tissue, as in the Labiates 

 and Boraginacece, where the really two-celled germen becomes 

 spuriously four-celled by means of such spurious dissepiments. 



b. Or the carpels may become united together by their edges, 

 so that they form a simple, many-membered germen, a style with 

 a simple tube, and a simple or multifold stigma (p. simplex, poly- 

 merum}. This pistil has, however, here only one cell like the one- 

 membered (imiloculare). Spurious dissepiments seldom exist here ; 

 these generally, perhaps exclusively, originate in a peculiar deve- 

 lopment of the spermophore, as in the Cruciferce, in which the 

 course of development is easy to follow. 



II. Of the false inferior Germen. With the formation of 

 a concave disc, it sometimes occurs that the several simple, 

 monomerous, superior germens which it surrounds, become not 

 only blended together, but with the disc, and so present one 

 uniform mass, which supports the remaining parts of the flower, 

 and from which the styles and stigmas project to greater or less 

 extent. This occurs in the Pomece, where only one circle of 

 germens exists, and in the Granatecs, where two circles stand to- 

 gether. This structure is altogether different from the true 

 inferior germen. In the former the individual germens are formed 

 from foliar organs, and blended with the axial organ ; but in 

 the latter it is a true form of the axis which exclusively con- 

 stitutes the germen. 



III. Of the inferior Germen. In a large number of families, the 

 collective internodes from the calyx to the carpels expand into a 

 hollow, cup-shaped, or even tubular body, which bears upon its 

 borders all the rest of the floral parts, and on its inner surface de- 

 velopes the seed-buds, and thus becomes the germen. The carpels, 

 when they are blended with one another at their edges, form only 

 the upper covering of the cavity of the germen the style, when 

 it is present, and with their free extremities they form the stigmas. 

 But their share in the formation of the germen varies greatly. If 



B B 



