CHAP. II. 
OVARY. 
195 
The swelling of the ovary after fertilisation is termed 
gr ossification. 
The style (tuha 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 com- 
municating 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, im- 
mediately 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 Boraginaceae. In these cases, however, it is to be under- 
stood that the geometrical and organic apices are different, 
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 that it is gibbous at 
the base of the style. 
The surface of the style is commonly smooth ; but in Com- 
positae, 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 
these hairs are collected in a whorl below the stigma; in 
Goodeniaceae they are united into a cup, in which the stigma is 
enclosed, and which is called the indusium (Plate V. fig. 13. h). 
Many styles which appear to be perfectly simple, as for 
instance those of the Primrose, the Lamium, the Lily, or the 
Borage, are in reality composed of several grown together ; 
as is indicated by the lobes of their stigma, or by the number 
of cells or divisions of their ovary. In Malva an example 
o *2 
