the accompanying drawing (fig. 12).
* Dr. Hooker, in his address to the British Association at Belfast,
1874, has given so full an historical account of the observations which
have been published on the habits of this plant, that it would be
superfluous on my part to repeat them.
** Gardener s Chronicle, 1874, p. 464. [page 287]
The two lobes stand at rather less than a right angle to each other.
Three minute pointed processes or filaments, placed triangularly,
project from the upper surfaces of both; but I have seen two leaves
with four filaments on each side, and another with only two. These
filaments are remarkable from their extreme sensitiveness to a touch,
as shown not by their own movement, but by that of the lobes. The
margins of the leaf are prolonged into sharp rigid projections which I
will call spikes, into each of which a bundle
FIG. 12. (Dionaea muscipula.) Leaf viewed laterally in its expanded
state.
of spiral vessels enters. The spikes stand in such a position that,
when the lobes close, they inter-lock like the teeth of a rat-trap. The
midrib of the leaf, on the lower side, is strongly developed and
prominent.
The upper surface of the leaf is thickly covered, excepting towards the
margins, with minute glands of a reddish or purplish colour, the rest
of the leaf being green. There are no glands on the spikes, or on the
foliaceous footstalk, The glands are formed of from [page 288] twenty
to thirty polygonal cells, filled with purple fluid. Their upper
surface is convex. They stand on very short pedicels, into which spiral
vessels do not enter, in which respect they differ from the tentacles
of Drosera. They secrete, but only when excited by the absorption of
certain matters; and they have the power of absorption. Minute
projections, formed of eight divergent arms of a reddish-brown or
orange colour, and appearing under the microscope like elegant little
flowers, are scattered in considerable numbers over the foot-stalk, the
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