PHANEROGAMIA : FLOWERS. 375 



become applied together and blended at their margins, forming, in like 

 manner, a tube open at the summit ; in both cases the lower part of the 

 cavity of the germen usually begins to enlarge at a subsequent period. 

 In inferior germens the carpels form, in the same way, a tube* communi- 

 cating with the cavity of the germen. With the exception of iheAsclepi- 

 udacece and Apocynacece, there is probably not one single family in which 

 the original canal of the style and the orifice at the stigma becomes ac- 

 tually grown up ; in most, this canal may be seen in the perfect pistil 

 as a tube, with a not inconsiderable cavity, and traced into the cavity of 

 the germen. In the others, no such empty space containing only air 

 can of course be distinguished ; but it nevertheless exists, and is merely 

 rendered indistinct by a peculiar modification of the cellular tissue which 

 lines it, of which I shall have to speak hereafter. As I have said, I 

 know of no exception. Most Monocotyledons which I have examined 

 have an entirely open tube in the style ; among the Dicotyledons, e. g. in 

 Viola, Euphorbia, Ricinus, Phytolacca, most Malvacece, Cruciferce, it is 

 the same. In the Orchidacece, the tube, which is open and proportion- 

 ately very wide before the germen is perfect, certainly appears closed at 

 the epoch of flowering ; but it is not so in fact. Even in the Proteacece, 

 to which, I think, Treviranus even denied a stigmatic surface, the canal 

 may be clearly demonstrated. 



In conclusion, I will add a few observations on some less essential 

 modifications in the form of the pistil and its parts. All here turns upon 

 the point which I have placed at the threshold of the whole subject 

 of Morphology, that the dimensions never determine the definition of 

 an organ : that, therefore, the said three parts of the pistil may occur 

 filiform, flattened, thickened, or globular (capitate), is self-evident. 

 Thence, globular (capitate), leaf-like, flat (and then with entire or va- 

 riously divided borders), or funnel-shaped, filiform, &c. stigmas, are 

 almost equally frequent ; the style is of course usually filiform, but in 

 the Malvaceae, for example, conical f, in Iris and Canna petaloid. The 

 forms of the cavity of the germen are infinitely varied ; generally, how- 

 ever, globular, ovate, or longish. One peculiar form may be briefly men- 

 tioned. When a many-membered pistil is closed up at an early period 

 and the germens, chiefly at the lower parts, and this toward one side, ex- 

 pand, this portion advances, bulging over the point of departure of the 

 style, so that the latter appears to arise, not from the summit but from 

 the side, or even from the base of the germen ; where several blended 

 carpels have been developed in this way, the style appears to arise be- 

 tween them from the receptacle : this is called a stylus gynobasicus, which 

 however, is not distinguished in any respect from the stylus lateralis and 

 basilaris of some Ranunculacece and Rosacece. 



* I will here, in passing, remark that the style is never a continuation of the mathe- 

 matical axis of the flower, as Link says (El. Phil. Bot. ed. 2. p. 217.) but always a 

 prolongation of the wall of the cavity of the germen proceeding out from it. The 

 investigation of every course of development of the germen proves the contrary. Just 

 as little does any process of the axis exist in the Geraniacece (Link, ibid.): the five 

 germens originate at once, separate and free, and become blended together ; no other 

 organ whatever appears among them. A hundred similar observations might be made, 

 since the old ones have done their best to leave the younger the whole harvest of 

 discovery undiminished, without our acquiring a right to be proud of our skill. We 

 do now what should have been done long ago, we look into things instead of making 

 words. 



f A childish game at making words has here invented the superfluous name of 

 morliolus for the stylo. 



B B 4 



