THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



91 



St. John's-wort (fig. 6, a) when the styles and stigmas 

 show the number of pistils. When the styles and stigmas, 

 also, are united, the compound stigma usually has as 

 many lobes as there are pistils. By cutting through a 

 compound ovary one can usually decide how many pistils 

 have been consolidated by counting the number of cells, 

 each cell, of course, representing a single pistil. Thus in 

 the Amaryllis (fig. 5, 6), a three-parted flower, what ap- 

 pears to be a single pistil is really composed of 

 three. In a few cases, however, the consolidation 

 has gone so far that the partitions in the ovar^^ 

 have disappeared, as in figure 7. The consolida- 

 tion of the pistils always begins at the base. The 

 ovary may be compound and the styles and stig- 

 mas separate, but these latter are never united un- 

 less the ovary is, also. Among flowers with compound 

 pistils may be mentioned the campions, lilies, saxifrages, 

 evening primroses, flaxes and oxalises. 



The pistils, whether simple or united, are likely to be 

 few in number — ^usually five or less in five parted flowers. 

 In some species, however, the number is greatly increased, 

 as in the strawberry where there are a large number col- 

 lected in a conical head which forms the berry. Other ex- 

 amples may be found in the buttercup, anemone and clem- 

 atis. In the tulip tree (Liriodendron) and the magnolias, 

 the pistils are arranged in a spiral forming a sort of cone, 

 while in the poppy the numerous pistils are in a circle and 

 united. 



DECIDUOUS TROPICAL TREES. 



BY O. W. BARRETT. 



IN Speaking of the silk-cotton tree in the November Amer- 

 ican Botanist, Mrs. E. C. Anthony strikes the keynote 

 of that tree's character. Madame '*Ceiba," who is down 

 on the books as Eriodendron anfractuosuniy is a portly- 

 matron sort of tree and I'm inclined to think that she re- 

 sents in her dignified way the great amount of gossip that 

 has been going about in the botanical periodicals for the 



