I 54 
PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 
Pollinia. — These are agglutinated pollen masses which are com- 
mon to the Orchidacece and Asclepiadacece. 
The pollen of many plants, notably certain species of Composite, 
Graminece and Rosacea, has been shown to be responsible for “Hay 
Fever.” At the present time serums, extracts* and vaccines are 
manufactured from pollen to be used in the treatment of this disease. 
The Gynoecium or Pistil System.- — This is the female system of 
organs of flowering plants. It may consist of one or more modified 
leaves called carpels. Each carpel or megasporophyll is a female 
organ of reproduction. In the Spruce, Pine, etc., it consists of an 
open leaf or scale which bears but does not enclose the ovules. In 
angiosperms it forms a closed sac which envelops and protects the 
ovules, and when complete is composed of three parts, the ovary or 
hollow portion at the base enclosing the ovules or rudimentary seeds, 
the stigma, or apical portion which receives the pollen grains, and 
the style, or connective which unites these two. The last is non- 
essential and when wanting the stigma is called sessile. The carpel 
clearly shows its relations to the leaf, though greatly changed in 
form. The lower portion of a leaf, when folded lengthwise with the 
margins incurved, represents the ovary; the infolded surface upon 
which the ovules are borne is the placenta, a prolongation of the 
tip of the leaf, the stigma, and the narrow intermediate portion, the 
style. A leaf thus transformed into an ovule-bearing organ is called 
a carpel. The carpels of the Columbine and Pea are made up of 
single carpels. In the latter the young peas occupy a double row 
along one of the sutures (seams) of the pod. This portion corre- 
sponds to the infolded edge of the leaf, and the pod splits open along 
this line, called the ventral suture. 
Dehiscence, or the natural opening of the carpel to let free the 
contained seeds, takes place also along the line which corresponds 
to the mid-rib of the leaf, the dorsal suture. 
The gynoecium or Pistil may consist of a number of separate 
carpels, as in the buttercup or Nymphaea flowers, when it is said to 
be apocarpous, or the carpels composing it may be united together 
to form a single structure, as in the flowers of Belladonna and Orange, 
when it is called syncarpous. 
If the pistil is composed of one carpel, it is called monocar pellary; 
