KNOWLEDGE OF MONOCOTYLEDONOUS SAPROPHYTES. 167 
visions would be made to ensure the firm attachment of the 
fruits. Each fruit is attached by a short almost imperceptible 
pedicel, and there is a distinct constriction marking the point of 
junction of the fruit and the pedicel. In the pedicel the whole 
of the parenchymatous ground-tissue, excepting 2-3 external 
cortical layers, is converted into mechanical tissue composed of 
short square cells with very thick, pitted, and lignified walls. 
At the constriction, the whole of the ground-tissue is thus 
modified. This mass of sclerenchyma penetrates the base of 
the fruit in the form of a short cone. Further, it is continued 
down the main axis, but only on the side on which the fruit is 
attached. 
The distribution of starch and raphide-mucilage cells varies 
in the different parts. The mucilage-cells are especially collected 
in the cortex. At the base of the axis, where roots are attached 
and the scales set closely together, it is easy to take a transverse 
section, so that a root is coming off from one side and a leaf from 
the other. On the root-side the cortex is packed with starch- 
grains. On the leaf-side not a grain of starch occurs in the 
cortex, though some grains are present in the nerve-parenchyma 
of the vascular bundles running out to the leaves. In the 
more central ground-tissue amongst the vascular bundles the 
starch increases towards the root and dwindles towards the leaf. 
(Starch is of course richly present in the cortex of the roots.) 
Similarly that half of the axis connected with the root has many 
large raphide-mucilage cells ;-on the side towards the leaf there 
are only a few small raphide-mucilage sacs. 
Half an inch above the region where the scales are closely set, 
starch occurs in the inner cortical cells around the general sheath 
and in the stelar ground-parenchyma.  Raphide-mucilage cells 
oceur and invade even the general sclerenchyma-sheath. 
An inch higher starch occurs solely in a few of the stelar 
ground-parenchyma cells, and there are only a few mucilage-ce!ls 
(three in a transverse section) without raphides. | 
Then succeeds a region in which there is no starch, and mucilage- 
cells are very scarce and isolated (often none visible ina transverse 
section). At this region the leaves have series of raphide-mucilage 
cells. Higher up, near the attachment of the fruits, the mucilage- 
sacs increase in number, though there is no starch. But in the 
pedicel the sacs are absent. 
In specimen B, above the region of attachment of the roots, 
only a small amount of starch occurred, and that was confined 
