angular pieces. I have no doubt that these spheres are nuclei, for
closely similar ones [page 435] are present in the cells forming the
walls of the bladders. Bifid processes, having rather short oval arms,
arise in the usual position on the inner side of the collar.
These bladders, therefore, resemble in all essential respects the
larger ones of the foregoing species. They differ chiefly in the
absence of the numerous glands on the valve and round the collar, a few
minute ones of one kind alone being present on the valve. They differ
more conspicuously in the absence of the long bristles on the antenn
and on the outside of the collar. The presence of these bristles in the
previously mentioned species probably relates to the capture of aquatic
animals.
FIG. 28. (Utricularia montana.) One of the quadrifid processes; much
enlarged.
It seemed to me an interesting question whether the minute bladders of
Utricularia montanaserved, as in the previous species, to capture
animals living in the earth, or in the dense vegetation covering the
trees on which this species is epiphytic; for in this case we should
have a new sub-class of carnivorous plants, namely, subterranean
feeders. Many bladders, therefore, were examined, with the following
results:
[(1) A small bladder, less than 1/30 of an inch (.847 mm.) in diameter,
contained a minute mass of brown, much decayed matter; and in this, a
tarsus with four or five joints, terminating in a double hook, was
clearly distinguished under the microscope. I suspect that it was a
remnant of one of the Thysanoura. The quadrifids in contact with this
decayed remnant contained either small masses of translucent, yellowish
matter, generally more [page 436] or less globular, or fine granules.
In distant parts of the same bladder, the processes were transparent
and quite empty, with the exception of their solid nuclei. My son made
at short intervals of time sketches of one of the above aggregated
masses, and found that they continually and completely changed their
forms; sometimes separating from one another and again coalescing.
Evidently protoplasm had been generated by the absorption of some
element from the decaying animal matter.
370