STIGMA AND PARIETAL PLACENTA IN PLANTS. 563
ever, is not to be understood the union or cohesion of parts originally distinct, for in the great majority of cases the separation or complete development of these parts from the original cellular and pulpy state has never taken place. But with this explanation the word may still ])e retained, unless connate should l)e considered less exceptionable.
I have also assumed that ovula belong to the transformed leaf or carpel, and are not derived from processes of the axis united with it, as several eminent botanists have lately supposed. That the placenta? and ovula really belong to the carpel alone is at least manifest in all cases where stamina are changed into pistilla. To such monstrosities I have long since referred in my earliest observations on the type of the female organ in phaenogamous plants,^ and since more particularly in my paper on BaJ/Iesia :" the most remark- able instances alluded to in illustration of this point being Sempervivum teciortim, Salix oleifolia, and Cochlearia armo- racia, in all of which every gradation between the perfect state of the anthera and its transformation into a complete pistillum is occasionally found.
^ In Linn. Soc. Trans., vol. xii, p. 89.
' Ibid. vol. xiii, p. 212, note. {Ante, p. 379.)
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