320 Oliver —On Sar codes sanguined , Torr . 
same ovary the placentation is parietal above, axile below. 
Further remarks on the nature of the placentation and on its 
possible origin are deferred till further investigations on the 
floral morphology of the Monotropeae are completed. It is 
exceedingly difficult to argue from one particular case whether 
axile is derivable from parietal placentation, or whether the 
reverse is the case. 
That the style-canal gives access to each ovarian chamber 
is easily to be inferred from the series of transverse sections 
described. In Fig. 17 is drawn a dissection of an ovary 
showing more exactly this communication. On the left the 
section has passed exactly in the median plane of a loculus, 
and the continuity of the ovarian chamber and the style-canal 
is seen to be direct. On the right, the section has passed 
through one side of the loculus, and the direct continuity does 
not appear. However, the dark shading ch r indicates the 
chink leading into the loculus, and a bristle can be easily 
passed through it and out into the ovarian cavity. In the 
same way the chink eh 2 leads into that chamber of the ovary 
immediately behind. The lighter regions, between the chinks 
(Fig. 17), indicate ridges running longitudinally down the style 
(the same as are figured in Fig. 21, b and c). The ovules are 
small and exceedingly numerous, as in Orchids. 
The calyx and corolla are persistent till the ripening of the 
fruit. The wall of the ovary becomes hard and brittle, but 
dehiscence is not effected by a separation of the ovary into 
valves, as happens in Monotropa , and in some other genera of 
the order; it is circumscissile. Dehiscence is effected by the 
formation of a circular split, around the base of the style, at 
a little distance (i-ij mm.) from it. It is by this that the 
seeds escape, since the wall of the fruit does not separate into 
valves. The circular chink is shown in the drawing of the 
dissected fruit (Fig. 20, d). The bi-lobed placentas in two of 
the chambers of the ovary are exposed in the dissection. 
The method of dehiscence here obtaining illustrates how, 
by a special adaptation, advantage is taken by a plant of a 
structure common to it and its allies, but which has not been 
