479 
in the Stock (Mat thiol a incand). 
8. As a rule the hollow (valve) carpels separate individually from the 
contiguous solid carpels, but when the number of carpels remains large and 
many become sterile, a group of carpels may be detached in one piece as 
a ‘ compound 5 valve. 
9. The conception of the solid carpel removes the difficulties inherent 
in the so-called ‘ commissural ’ stigma and the ‘ false ’ partition by establish¬ 
ing the normal position of the one and the genuine character of the other. 
10. Furthermore, this conception affords an explanation of various 
hitherto unexplained phenomena, such as (a) the fairly constant occurrence 
in some species of two kinds of fruit on the same individual; (b) the 
occasional appearance of a few multicarpellary fruits in types normally 
having only the reduced number four ; (c) certain more extreme cases, where 
this exceptional multicarpellary construction is found more or less through¬ 
out an individual plant, which on this account has in some instances, though 
on insufficient grounds, been accorded generic rank. From the present 
standpoint these exceptional fruits, hitherto considered for the most part as 
mere sports or monstrosities, are of cardinal importance on account of the 
light which they throw on the phylogenetic history. 
11. Their occurrence points to the conclusion that in each family in the 
series the course of evolution has proceeded on the same lines : that those 
forms having numerous carpels all of the valve type and splitting septici- 
dally are the older, those with a reduced number of carpels some of which 
are hollow and sterile, some solid and ovuliferous, the more recent. 
t 
Concerning the Papaveraceae and Funiariaceae. 
12. Carpels generally numerous (twenty or more), but in some genera 
as few as three or four. 
13. Many-carpelled fruits in which most of the carpels are sterile 
usually dehisce into two compound (several-carpelled) valves, as in Esch - 
scholzia and its allies. 
14. Evolution has probably proceeded from some form of the Platy- 
stemon type, with many carpels all of valve form. Thence in oned irection 
has arisen the group of the Papavereae, represented at first by forms with 
many carpels of the solid as well as the valve type, from which the few- 
carpelled forms were evolved later. In another direction the Hypecoum types 
(Fig. 58) with many-veined (-carpelled), generally lomentose or exceptionally 
dehiscent, compound-valved fruits leading on along one line to the 4- 
carpelled Fumariaceae types: along another perhaps to the Eschscholzieae, 
still many-carpelled with characteristic replum frame and compound valves. 
15. The process of evolution of the solid carpel is to be seen as 
a regular feature in Ceratocapnos ( Corydalis) heterocarpa , Ball. (Fumariaceae), 
where the earlier fruits are urn-shaped and the later ones siliquiform. 
I i 2 
