164 
ORGANOGRAPHY. 
BOOK I. 
That part of the ovary from which the ovules arise is called 
the placenta ( Tropliospermium^ Richard ; Spermaphorum^ Colum, 
Receptacle of the Seeds.) It generally occupies the wliole or a 
portion of one angle of each cell (Plate V. fig. 1. e, 2. c, &c.), 
and will be spoken of more particularly hereafter. It is 
sometimes elongated in the form of a little cord, as in the 
Hazel nut, and many Cruciferae : it is then called the umbi- 
lical cord [funiculus umbilicalis, podospermium). 
The swelling of the ovary after fertilisation is termed 
grossification. 
The style (tuba of old authors) is that elongation of the 
ovary which supports the stigma (Plate V. fig. 7./*). It is 
frequently absent, and then the stigma is sessile : it is not 
more essential to a pistil than the stalk to a leaf, or the claw 
to a petal, or the filament to a stamen. Anatomically con- 
sidered, it consists of a column of one or more bundles of 
vascular tissue, surrounded by cellular tissue; the former 
communicating on the one hand with the stigma, and on the 
other with the vascular tissue of the ovary. It is usually 
taper, often filiform, sometimes very thick, and occasionally 
angular: rarely thin, flat, and coloured, as in Iris and in 
Canna. In some plants it is continuous with the ovary, the 
one passing insensibly into the other, as in Digitalis ; in 
others it is articulated with the ovary, and falls off, by a clean 
scar, immediately after fertilisation has been accomplished, 
as in the Scirpus. Its usual point of origin is from the apex 
of the ovary ; nevertheless, cases occur, in which it proceeds 
from the side, as in Alchemilla, or even from the base, as in 
Labiatae and Boragineae. In these cases, however, it is to be 
ilnderstood that the geometrical and organic apices are differ- 
ent, the latter being determined by the origin of the style. 
For this reason, when the style is said to proceed from the 
side or base of the ovary, it would be more correct to say that 
the ovary is obliquely inflated or dilated, or gibbous at the 
base of the style. 
The surface of the style is commonly smooth ; but in Com- 
positse, Campanulaceae, and others, it is often densely covered 
with hairs, called collectors, which seem intended as brushes 
to clear the pollen out of the cells of the anthers. In Lobelia 
