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. Section XI. OVULES. 317. =Ovule= (from the Latin, meaning a little egg) is the technical name of that which in the flower answers to and becomes the seed. [Illustration: Fig. 340. A cluster of ovules, pendulous on their funicles.] 318. Ovules are _naked_ in gymnospermous plants (as just described), in all others they are enclosed in the ovary. They may be produced along the whole length of the cell or cells of the ovary, and then they are apt to be numerous, or only from some part of it, generally the top or the bottom. In this case they are usually few or single (_solitary_, as in Fig. 341-343). They may be _sessile_, i. e. without stalk, or they may be attached by a distinct stalk, the FUNICLE or FUNICULUS (Fig. 340). [Illustration: Fig. 341. Section of the ovary of a Buttercup, lengthwise, showing its ascending ovule.] [Illustration: Fig. 342. Section of the ovary of Buckwheat, showing the erect ovule.] [Illustration: Fig. 343. Section of the ovary of Anemone, showing its suspended ovule.] 319. Considered as to then position and direction in the ovary, they are _Horizontal_, when they are neither turned upward nor downward, as in Podophyllum (Fig. 326), _Ascending_, when rising obliquely upwards, usually from the side of the cell, not from its very base, as in the Buttercup (Fig. 341), and the Purslane (Fig. 272), _Erect_, when rising upright from the very base of the cell, as in the Buckwheat (Fig. 342), _Pendulous_, when hanging from the side or from near the top, as in the Flax (Fig. 270), and _Suspended_, when hanging perpendicularly from the very summit of the cell, as in the Anemone (Fig. 343). All these terms equally apply to seeds. 320. In structure an ovule is a pulpy mass of tissue, usually with one or two coats or coverings. The following parts are to be noted, viz.--