1289. The development of the carpels stands usually in an inverse relation to the size of the parts of the corolla. Thus the legume is situated between the two insignificant petals of the keel, opposite to the large vexillum; in the Personatæ a carpel is situated in the fissure of the upper lip; upon the lower lip, consisting of three lobes, only one carpel is situated, which consequently supplies the place of four, and is therefore also larger.
1290. The stages of leaf-formation are also displayed in the matured state of the ovarium. The radical or scale-leaf is repeated in the cariopsis; as in the grasses, orachs, nettles, and such like plants.
1291. The spathe-leaf becomes a siliqua, or hollow capsule, in which forsooth the septa are arrested, and the seeds stand upon the conjoined edges of the carpels, upon their walls, or also upon a mediate replum and placenta, as in the proper Siliquose plants with the poppies, Resedæ, Primulæ and pinks.
1292. The reticular-leaf is perfected into a capsule, where the carpels are so confluent with each other, that they form septa and bear the seeds upon the internal angle or upon the axis, as in the Rues. If these carpels separate, then polycarpal plants, as the Ranunculaceæ, Malvaceæ, Magnoliaceæ, originate. In these the median columella is the elongated floral peduncle. If they separate, without leaving a median columella between them; they are then simply called follicles, as in the larkspur and celandine. If this capsule be compressed flat; it is called legumen, as in the beans.
1293. The cariopsis generally contains one and that a large seed; the siliqua or hollow capsule is many-or small-seeded; the follicle few-or moderately-seeded; the capsule many-and also few-seeded.
1294. In the cariopsis the seed is attached to the base or apex; in the follicle in a row upon the inner suture; in the siliqua upon the carpellar edges, or their walls, and on a meso-replum or frame; in the capsule upon the inner angle or on a middle axis or column. Seed-bearing alæ to the columella are only the carpellar edges prolonged into the loculi or cells.
STYLE.
1295. What the stamen-filament is for the petal of the corolla, that is the style for the ovarial petal or the carpel, viz. the rib that has become free. As, however, the leaf-formation in the ovary is generally imperfect, so also is the separation of the tissues or systems. The style is not therefore freed at once from its root, but projects only above the leaf-substance.
1296. But as the singular circumstance occurs in the ovary that the midrib is arrested while only the marginal ribs shoot out, so is the style the elongation and coalescence of the two marginal ribs. Every stigma is therefore biacuminate.
1297. There must always be as many styles as the ovary has carpels or cells. If only one style appear, in this case it is then made up of several mid-ribs. In most instances the number of styles is recognized in the number of the stigmata.