Generally speaking, the disunion is complicated with frondescence--but not always so. I have, in my herbarium, specimens of _Convallaria majalis_, _Commelyna sp._, and of _Lilium auratum_, in all of which the three carpels are completely disjoined, and present three styles, three stigmas, &c., without any other change. Engelmann[79] speaks of three classes of this malformation. 1st, that in which the carpels separate one from the other without opening, as in the lily just alluded to; 2nd, that in which the ovary remains closed, but loses its internal partitions, as in a case mentioned by Moquin in _Stachys sylvatica_, in which, owing to imperfect disjunction, the two bi-lobed carpels were changed into a nearly one-celled capsule;[80] and 3rd, those cases in which the carpels are open and foliaceous.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Anomalous form of orange.]
Disjunction is more frequent in dry fruits than in fleshy ones. In the latter instance it happens at an early stage of existence, and the pericarp becomes more or less leafy, losing its faculty of becoming fleshy, as in _Prunus Cerasus_ and _Amygdalus persica_; nevertheless, fleshy fruits sometimes become disunited. I have seen a case similar to that mentioned by M. Alphonse de Candolle in _Solanum esculentum_, in which the pericarp became ruptured, and the placentas protruded. A like occurrence has also been observed in a species of _Melastoma_.[81] This is analogous to what happens in _Caulophyllum_ and _Slateria_. Disjunction of the carpels is not rare in oranges. Sometimes this takes place regularly, at other times irregularly; occasionally in such a manner as to give the appearance of a hand and fingers to the fruit. Of one of these, Ferrari,[82] in the curious volume below cited, speaks thus: "Arbor profusissima, quia dat utraque manu; imo quia vere manus dat in poma conversis; utque magis munifica sit poma ipsa convertit in manus."
M. Duchartre[83] mentions a semi-double flower of orange with eight to ten distinct carpels in a whorl, and occasionally several whorls one above another. De Candolle[84] considers the rind of the orange as a production from the receptacle, and this view is confirmed by the specimens of Duchartre, in which the carpels were quite naked or had a common envelope truncated, and open above to allow of the passage of the styles and stigmas.