Carpel number

Livia Wanntorp and co-workers (Chapter 9) study the variation in merism in Conostegia (Melastomataceae) and explore how changes in petal and stamen numbers correlate with increases in carpel numbers. 

The contribution of Gerhard Prenner (Chapter 11) studies a special case of high stamen and carpel numbers in Acacia celastrifolia and how this appears to be a concerted increase, linked with specific pollination strategies. 

Carpel number I I One carpel I I 2-5 carpels in one whorl (series) H >5 carpels in one whorl H More than one whorl... 

Fig 3.12 Selected floral characters mapped on the hackhone tree of Doyle and Endress (2010) with fossil Cohongarootonia hispida (PP53716) included. (A) Carpel number. (B) Ovule number. 

Fig 4.3 Same tree as in Fig 4.1, showing the most parsimonious course of evolution of the carpel number character (96) of Doyle and Endress (2010). Abbreviations as in Fig 4.1. 

It seems most likely that the presence of the styrene compound was at least partially responsible for the inhibition of prickly sida germination and root length, since ferulic acid alone (prickly sida seed without carpels plus ferulic acid) had no effect on prickly sida germination or root length (Table XI). The decarboxylation of phenolic acids to corresponding styrenes is known from studies on fungi and bacteria (60, 61). However, in a number of studies directly concerned with the microbial decomposition of ferulic acid, as well as other phenolic acids, no mention is made of any styrene compounds produced as a result of phenolic acid decarboxylation (62, 63, 64, 65). 

Fruit usually a capsule, berry, drupe, or samara carpels commonly several to many seeded. 9 Corolla regular or nearly so stamens usually of the same number as the corolla lobes. 

The gynoedum or Pistil may consist of a number of separate carpels, as in the buttercup or Nymphaea flowers, when it is said to be apocarpous, or the carpels composing it may be united together to form a single structure, as in the flowers of Belladonna and Orange, when it is called syncarpous. 

Fruits may also be classified into a number of structural types. The individual seed-bearing structures of the flower called carpels constitute the gynoecium. The seed-containing cavity of a carpel is called the ovary, and its wall develops into the pericarp of the fruit. The edible fleshy part of a fruit most commonly develops from the ovary wall, but it may be also derived from the enlarged tip of stem from which floral organs arise, and sometimes leaf-like structures protecting the flowers may also become fleshy, e.g., in pineapple. 

Following pollination by wind or insect, the petals are shed and the pistil elongates to form a pod (silique) with two carpels separated by a false septum. A single row of seeds develops within each of the two loculi (Fig. 6). The number of seeds per pod varies with the species, form, and environment, but normally a pod contains between 15 and 40 seeds. At maturity the... 

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