METAMORPHOSIS. 



189 



the extra carpels represent transformed stamens is 

 strongly supported by the fact that in the flower the 

 stamens are completely absent ; that a lower seed- 

 bearing "core" is always present ; and that the number 

 of carpels in the upper tier is often, if not always, twice 

 as many as in the lower. In this fruit the transformed 

 stamens, in the form of carpels, have become intimately 

 adnate to the fleshy sepal-bases ; hence the normal 

 sepal- bases have either become further elongated, or, as 

 is more probable, a greater length than usual of each 

 sepal has become involved in the succulent consistence. 



Hence, the St. Valery apple strongly supports the 

 calyx-tube theory of the pome-fruit, and is incompatible 

 with the (at present) more popular axial theory thereof. 



The above cases of carpellody are in hermaphrodite 

 flowers. In the poppy the stamens are indefinite in 

 number, and only some of the innermost are trans- 

 formed into carpels. In the Linaria, Gheiranthus, and 

 Primula the stamens are few in number and all are 

 liable to be changed, thus giving rise to a purely female 

 flower. 



In Male Floivers. 



We next have instances in which flowers which are 

 normally unisexual, viz. male, become hermaphrodite. 

 This is frequent in Begonia. In B. Cathayana a male 

 flower bore carpels in the centre, which, to judge by 

 the reduced number of the stamens, had arisen by 

 transformation of some of the innermost of the nume- 

 rous stamens ; in such cases the inferior ovary becomes 

 superior. 



Schmitz observed in his abnormal Euphorbia that 

 some of the anthers, representing stamens, at the apex 

 of the structures (flower-stalks) axillary to the leafy 

 bracts, became changed into carpels. Immediately 

 beneath this agglomeration of terminal* sessile anthers 



* Schmitz, however, held the view that the stamens in Euphorbia are of 

 axile nature, and would not, therefore, subscribe to this view of them as 

 terminal foliar organs. 



