224 



MORFHOLOG V. 



present the only suggestion which it gives of belonging to the 

 leaf series is the fact that the end is divided into three parts, the 

 number of parts in each successive whorl of members of the 

 flower. If we cut across tire body of this pistil and examine it 

 with a low power we see that there are three chambers or cavi- 

 ties, and at the junction of each 

 the walls suggest to us that this 

 body may have been formed by the 

 infolding of the margins of three 

 leaf-like members, the places of 

 contact having then become grown 

 together. We see also that from 

 the incurved 



margins of each 

 division of the 

 pistil there stand 



out in the cavity oval bodies. 

 These are the ovules. Now the 

 ovules we have learned from our 

 study of the gymnosperms are the 

 sporangia (here the macrosporangia). 

 It is now more evident that this curious body, the pistil, is made up 

 of three leaf-like members which have fused together, each mem- 

 ber beiuL; the equivalent of a sporophyll (here the macrosporo- 

 phyll). This must be a fascinating observation, that 

 plants of such widely different groups and of such 

 different -grades of complexity should have members 

 formed on the same plan and belonging to the same 

 series of members, devoted to similar functions, and 

 yet carried out with such great modifications that at 

 first we do not see this- common meeting ground 

 which a comparative study brings out so clearly. 

 446. Transformations of the flower of trillium. — 

 anther^'iSef If anything more were needed to make it clear that 

 on the margin. ^^^ ^^^^^ ^f ^j^^ ^^^^^^ ^f trillium belong to the leaf 



series we could obtain evidence from the transformations ^^'hich 



Fig. 294. 

 Transformed 

 stamen of tril- 



