§ 2 Gymnospermous Gynœcium
313. The ordinary pistil has a closed ovary, and accordingly the pollen can act upon the contained ovules only indirectly, through the stigma. This is expressed in a term of Greek derivation, viz.:—
Angiospermous, meaning that the seeds are borne in a sac or closed vessel. The counterpart term is Gymnospermous, meaning naked-seeded. This kind of pistil, or gynœcium, the simplest of all, yet the most peculiar, characterizes the Pine family and its relatives.
314. While the ordinary simple pistil is conceived by the botanist to be a leaf rolled together into a closed pod (306), those of the Pine, Larch (Fig. 337), Cedar, and Arbor-Vitæ (Fig. 338, 339) are open leaves, in the form of scales, each bearing two or more ovules on the inner face, next the base. At the time of blossoming, these pistil-leaves of the young cone diverge, and the pollen, so abundantly shed from the staminate blossoms, falls directly upon the exposed ovules. Afterward the scales close over each other until the seeds are ripe. Then they separate that the seeds may be shed. As the pollen acts directly on the ovules, such pistil (or organ acting as pistil) has no stigma.
315. In the Yew, and in Torreya and Gingko, the gynœcium is reduced to extremest simplicity, that is, to a naked ovule, without any visible carpel.
316. In Cycas the large naked ovules are borne on the margins or lobes of an obvious open leaf. All Gymnospermous plants have other peculiarities, also distinguishing them, as a class, from Angiospermous plants.