Carpel Synonyms

Each carpel has its own ovary, style (when present), and stigma, and may be regarded as formed by a folded leaf, the upper surface of which is turned inwards towards the axis, and the lower outwards, while from its margins are developed one or more ovules.

When the pistil is formed by one carpel the inner margins unite and form usually a common marginal placenta, which may extend FIG.

The morphology of the female flowers has been variously interpreted by botanists; the peduncle bearing the ovules has been described as homologous with the petiole of a foliage-leaf and as a shoot-structure, the collar-like envelope at the base of the ovules being referred to as a second integument or arillus, or as the representative of a carpel.

Similarly in the sporophylls of some cycads the bundles are endarch near the base and mesarch near the distal end of the stamen or carpel.

These projections and ridges may be homologous with the seminiferous scale of the pines, firs, cedars, &c. The simplest interpretation of the cone of the Abietineae is that which regards it as a flower consisting of an axis bearing several open carpels, which in the adult cone may be very small or large and prominent, the scale bearing the ovules being regarded as a placental outgrowth from the flat and open carpel.