86 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



petals, under the margin of the stylopod, and alternate. Each is 

 formed of a filament incurved in the bud, and a bilocular didymous 

 anther, with cells dehiscing by an introrse longitudinal cleft.' The 

 ovary, inferior, has two cells, anterior and posterior. Each contams 

 in its internal angle one ' descending, anatropous ovule, with micro- 

 pyle turned upwards and outwards.^ The ovary is surmounted by two 



Fig. 66. Fruit (|). 



Fig. 67. Trans, sect, of fruit {^). 



erect styles, attenuated towards their stigmatiferous summit. At the 

 base each style is externally dilated to a thick semicircular disk, 

 which covers the summit of the ovary and is called the stylopod.* 



1 Or nearly marginal. The pollen of the 

 XfmbelUferce is described by H, Mohl {^Ann. Sc. 

 Nat. ser. 2, iii. 324) aa formed of grains " nearly 

 cylindrical with rounded extremities; three 

 furrows; in water, ovoid with three narrow 

 hands and three papillae ; external membrane 

 very finely granular." 



^ There are exceptionally two, one of which 

 is most frequently small and not fertile. It is 

 the trace of a primitive disposition observed by 

 Payer in Meracleum, according to which each 

 ovarian cell is at first biovulate. 



•^ There is but one coat and that very incom- 

 plete and there are cases in which it may be 

 said to be almost wanting (see H. Bn. Compt. 

 Rend. Acad. Se. Ixxxv. 1178 ; Adansonia, xii. 

 103, 108, 120). 



* DucHARTRE [Elim. edit. % 739) thinks that 

 the " epigynous disk greatly thickens almost 

 hemispherically over the ovary, apparently 

 surrounds, the base of the style, and is then 

 a&DLei. stylopod ;" here certainly incorrect. Else- 

 where (p. 1130) he says that the stamens "as 

 well as the corolla are inserted on an epigynous 

 disk," and farther on, that the two styles " form 

 at their base an enlargement called a stylopod;" 

 from which it would appear that he admits 

 these two distinct organs. On examining eitlier 

 the commencement or the adult state of what 

 he calls the disk of an TTmbellifer, he might 

 have seen that the androecium and corolla are 

 inserted not on this organ, but below it, at the 

 margin of the receptacular sac. 



