166 
ORGANOGRAPHY. 
BOOK I. 
two-lobed stigma is a two-lobed style, the points only of the 
lobes of which are stigmatic : and in Lathyrus, and many 
other Papilionaceous plants, Linnaean botanists call the hairy 
back of the style the stigma ; while, in fact, the latter is con- 
fined to the mere point of the style. 
Nevertheless, there are certain stigmas in which no 
denuded or secreting surface can be detected. Of this nature 
is that of Tupistra, in which the apparent stigma is a fungous 
mass with a surface of the same nature as that of the style ; 
in such a stigma the mode of fertilisation forms a very inte- 
resting problem, which botanists have yet to solve. 
The centre of a stigma consists of tissue of a peculiar 
character, which communicates directly with the placenta, 
and which is called the stigmatic tissue. It is more lax than 
that which surrounds it, and serves for the conveyance of the 
fertilising matter of the pollen into the ovules. 
Such is a general view of the more remarkable peculiarities 
of the female system. This part, however, bears so important 
an office in the functions of vegetation, is so valuable as a 
means of scientific arrangement, and is liable to such a great 
variety of modifications, that it will be necessary now to con- 
sider it in another and more philosophical point of view. For 
we have yet to consider the structure of the compound pistil, 
and to learn to understand the exact nature of its cells, and 
dissepiments, and placentae, and the precise relation that these 
parts bear to each other; and also to prove that the necessary 
consequence of the laws under which pistils are constructed 
is, that they can be subject to only a particular course of 
modification, within which every form must absolutely, and^ 
without exception, fall. This enquiry would, perhaps, be less 
important if none but structure of a very regular and uniform 
kind were to exist; but, considering the numberless anoma- 
lies that the pistil exhibits, it becomes at once one of the most 
difficult and most essential parts of a student's investigation. 
In the days of Linnaeus and Gaertner, and even in those of 
the celebrated L. C. Richard, nothing whatever was known 
of this matter, and consequently the writings of those car- 
pologists are a mere tissue of ingenious misconceptions. Nor 
did the subject become at all intelligible, notwithstanding the 
