The New Student's Reference Work/Apocarpous Flowers

Apocarpous (ăp′ō-kär′pŭs) Flowers. The carpels of a flower may remain distinct from one another and thus form simple pistils, or they may organize together in the formation of a compound pistil. In the former case the flower is apocarpous, in the latter it is syncarpous. An apocarpous condition is regarded as more primitive than a syncarpous one. The noun form of the word is apocarpy.