350 



PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



between the pulp-carpels and the peel bracts as there is between 

 the carpels and the petaloid st<imens in the very double Paeonies. 

 The one set of whorls increase indepe)idently of the other set. 



Xow in the PcBonia Moutan we have something very similar, 

 in my opinion, to the orange peel. With the exception of the 

 stigmatic surfaces, all the carpels are enveloped in a purple sheath, 

 the margin of which is often surmounted by a set of teeth. On 

 one occasion, as I said, I found an anther on one of these teeth. 

 The genesis of this sheath became therefore clear. It is a 

 fasciation of a whorl of ^Xiww^n-Ji laments. Its beautiful purple 

 colour, moreover, coincides exactly with the colour of the stamen- 

 filaments proper. 



Fig. 153 shows the sheath enclosing the carpels. It 

 will be seen that the sheath occupies the exact position of 



ilg, 153. Sheath of P. Montan, in part removed (Le Maout aiul Dec, 



Fig. 443). 



the disk in Ruta graveoleiift, and is probably homologous 

 with it, and therefore the disk of the Ruta is probably the 

 remnant of a suppressed whorl of stamens, or other phyllous 

 appendages. One leaflet, in aborting, often becomes a stipel, a 

 number of teeth in aborting often liecome a substantial gland, or 

 fusion of teeth-glands, as in the cherry leaf,* and the contiguity 

 of a number of similar glands disposed in a whorl might easily 

 cause them to fuse into a dish. Such a disk might easily come about 

 bv the aV)ortion of tlie sheath of the P. Montan. Indeed, in the 

 P. Albi flora, and others, we have the disk, or rudiments of the 

 disk, and not the sheath. In the Pceonia officinalis, the disk is 



* Vide Fig. 85. 



