384 



MORPHOLOGY. 



formation of the spermophore. For the purposes of description 

 they may be simply classed as follows (fig. 221.) : 



A. A seed-bud in each germen. 



a. Attached at the base (gemmula basilaris), Composites. 



b. Suspended (gemmula pendula), Typliacea. 



c. Attached to the wall (g. lateralis), Graminece. 



d. Depending from a free central spermophore (//. e spermophoro 

 centrali libero pendula), Plumbaginacece. 



B. More than one seed-bud in each germen. 



e. Attached to a free central spermophore (g. spermophoro cen- 

 trali libero affixce), Primulacce. 



f. Attached in an angle of the compartment of the germen 

 (g. angulo interno loculorum affixes), Iridacece. 



g. Attached to the parietal spermophore (y. spermophoro pa- 

 rietali affixes), Orchidacece. 



There are some further general remarks to be made upon its 

 form. The free spermophore may, like the axis, present various 

 shapes ; it may be conical, spherical, and pedicellate, cylin- 

 drical, prismatic, winged, &c. The adherent spermophore, so 

 soon as it is to be distinguished as a projecting ridge, may be 

 simple or split into two lamella?, which are often very broad (as in 

 Begonia and Gesneracece ; spermophorum bilamellatum, bifidum) ; 

 each of these lamella may again be divided, so that the sper- 

 mophore may have four seed-bearing edges ; as in Mariynia 

 diandra. The structure in the Cucurbitacece is peculiar ; in these 

 the parietal spermophore, extending in as far as the axis, here 

 become split into two lamina? ; these lamina?, consisting of the two 

 spermophores applied together, turn back again to the wall of the 

 cavity of the germen ; thus a new spurious septum is formed in 

 the compartments already formed by spurious septa, and then 

 each curves once more to its own side in the secondary com- 

 partment, and produces the seed-buds on the free edges. 



It may be originally a thin plate, the edge of which becomes 

 thickened into a border, and this again may be angular or winged, 

 &c. It is, moreover, by no means unusual for the substance of the 

 spermophore to be much distended between the seed-buds, so that 

 they are seated on, or imbedded in, little heaps of the parenchyma, 

 as is very frequently the case in the Primulacece. 



As to its structure, it is usually composed of delicate walled 



