METAMORPHOSIS. 



195 



quite obscured. When carpels tend to become en- 

 larged or leafy, the ovules are seen to resume their 

 primitive position on the carpellary margins, often at 

 the same time increasing in number. To give merely 

 one instance, Cramer figures such carpels in the carrot 

 (Daucus Garota) (PI. XL VIII, fig. 3). 



The green "eyes " or centres of varieties of Ranun- 

 culus asiaticus, Adonis amurensis, etc., are due to a 

 similar transformation.* The other changes of the 

 pistil which are usually concurrent with phyllody are : 

 dialysis (in syncarpous ovaries), increase in number of 

 the carpels, and displacement! from the " inferior " to 

 the superior position. 



Turning now to the changes which take place in 

 ovules, we find that in the great majority of cases the 

 ovules, when present on leafy carpels, are situated on 

 the leaf-margins. They may be either normal, or in 

 different stages of transformation into leaflets, i. e. 

 divisions of the leaf bearing them. These metamor- 

 phosed ovules have been observed and described by 

 various authors, and many and varied views have 

 been set forth as to the conclusions to be drawn from 

 them with regard to the morphology of the ovule. J 

 The idea that the ovule is a bud or miniature axis was 

 held by Braun, A. de St. Hilaire, Schleiden, and 

 Penzig. The last-named based his view on the fact 

 that he found in Scrophularia vernalis nucelli borne at 

 the apex of elongated structures growing on the 

 placenta. Others, like Magnus, were influenced to 

 hold this view by the fact that in some plants the 

 ovule is normally terminal to the axis of the plant; 



# The phenomenon of phyllody is useful as showing us that the carpel, 

 whatever its present form may be, is morphologically, as Goethe and Wolff 

 long since pointed out, of the nature of a foliage-leaf, i. e. that it has 

 evolved out of this organ in the past. 



f The view is supported here that displacement is only apparent in these 

 cases, and that the phenomenon is due simply to lack of fusion between the 

 sepal-bases and the ovary. 



X For all details see the present writer's historical sketch in which also 

 the untenability of all other theories except the foliolar is clearly shown. 



