SPERMATOPHYTES: ANGIOSPERMS 
363 
gether form a common ovary, while the styles may also 
combine to form one style (Fig. 324, (7), or they may remain 
more or less distinct (Fig. 324, B). Such an ovary may 
contain a single chamber, as if the carpels had united edge 
to edge (Fig. 325, ^4) ; or it may contain as many chambers 
as there are constituent carpels (Fig. 325, B), as though 
each carpel had formed its own ovary before coalescence. 
In ordinary phrase an ovary is either "one-celled" or 
" several-celled," but as the word " cell " has a very differ- 
ent application, the ovary chamber had better be called a 
loculus, meaning "a compartment." Ovaries, 
A 3 C 
FIG. 325. Diagrammatic sections of ovaries : A, cross-section of an ovary with one 
loculus and three carpels, the three sets of ovules said to be attached to the wall 
(parietal) ; B, cross-section of an ovary with three loculi and three carpels, the 
ovules being in the center (central) ; C, longitudinal section showing ovulea 
attached to free axis (free central). After SCHIMPER. 
therefore, may have one loculus or several loculi. Where 
there are several loculi each one usually represents a con- 
stitutent carpel (Fig. 325, B) ; where there is one loculus 
the ovary may comprise one carpel (Fig. 324, A), or several 
(Fig. 325, A). 
There is a very convenient but not a scientific word, 
which stands for any organization of the ovary and the 
accompanying parts, and that is pistil. A pistil may be 
one carpel (Fig. 324, A), or it may be several carpels or- 
ganized together (Fig. 324, B, (7), the former case being a 
simple pistil, the latter a compound pistil. In other words, 
