THE FLOWER 97 



The carpels constituting a gynoecium may be free 

 from one another or more or less coherent. When 

 the carpels are free from one another the pistil is said 

 to be APOCARPOUS ; when they are coherent, the pistil 

 is said to be syncarpous. An apocarpous pistil 

 is simple or multiple according as the number of 

 carpels is one or more than one. The pistil of Pea, 

 for example, is apocarpous simple, and that of kantali- 

 champa apocarpous multiple, while that of Orange is 

 syncarpous. If you make a cross-section of an Orange, 

 you will find that it discloses several chambers corre- 

 sponding to the number of carpels that have united 

 together to produce the pistil or fruit. The cross- 

 section of a Pea similarly discloses one chamber corre- 

 sponding to one carpel forming the pistil or fruit. In 

 a syncarpous pistil the cohesion of the carpels may 

 exist either throughout their whole structure, including 

 the ovary, style, and stigma, as in Orange; or in the 

 region of the ovary and style only, the stigma re- 

 • maining free, as in jaba; or in the region of the ovary 

 only, the style and stigma remaining free (see figs. 

 160, 161), as in mashina or tishi or Linseed, chita 

 {Plumbago), Hypericum, and Pink; or in the region 

 of style and stigma, the ovaries only remaining free, 

 as in karabi, Vinca (see fig. 206, b), and akanda. 

 From the number of the stigmas, or of both stigmas 

 and styles, the number of carpels of which a syn- 

 carpous pistil is composed is usually inferred. For 

 example, in jaba there are five stigmas, from which 

 we infer that the pistil is composed of five carpels; 

 in tishi or Linseed there are five styles and five 

 stigmas, and we infer that the pistil is composed 

 of five carpels. Even when the cohesion is com- 

 plete, as in Mustard and kalmi-shag, the number 

 of lobes of the stigma indicates the number of 



