458 MESSRS. J. PARKIN AND H. H. W. PEARSON ON THE 
Curculigo orchioides (N.O. Amaryllidacex).—This perennial 
herb has an erect fleshy rootstock and stout tuberous roots. In 
our collected material the rootstock had a largely developed 
cortex full of small starch-grains. The root-tubers, on the other 
hand, contained no starch, and the cells seem to lack contents 
generally. Possibly they may have had reserve carbohydrate, 
which has been exhausted, or they may function as water- 
reservoirs, while the rootstock serves as a food-reservoir. Ex- 
aminations of the plant at various times of the year would soon 
elucidate this point. Our material was collected in the middle 
of October from the Hakgala patanas. 
Pedicularis zeylanica and Spiranthes australis (an orchid) are 
peculiar in having starch-grains in their reserve-organs staining 
not blue, but red-brown with iodine. 
The large tuberous roots of Pedicularis zeylanica were nearly 
depleted of their starch; what remained was located in the 
outer part and stained red with iodine, suggesting the idea 
that the altered nature of the grains was merely prior to 
their complete dissolution. However, the plentiful starch-grains 
of young roots stained similarly, looking as if “red” starch is 
the form in which the reserve-carbohydrate is deposited in this 
plant. 
A few cases of reserve “red” starch are known *, such as in 
the endosperm of Sorghum vulgare var. glutinosum, in the root- 
stock of a few orchids, and in the tuber of Zsopyrum biternatum t. 
Transitory “red” starch is of commoner occurrence. 
(5) Cortical Bundles in the Stem of Glochidion zeylanicum.— 
Besides the main stele, this plant often has in its internodes two 
small lateral steles traversing the cortex opposite one another 
and running in two longitudinal swellings, one on each side of 
the stem (Pl. 12. fig. 10). These are similar in structure to the 
main stele. 
This character is not very constant. Sometimes one only of 
the lateral steles is continuous throughout the internode, the 
other joining the central stele part of the way up ; or, again, both 
may fuse with the main stele before the node above is reached. 
Further, in one internode three subsidiary steles occurred, two on 
* A. Meyer, Ber. d. Deut. Bot. Ges. 1886, p. 337 ; Shimoyama, “ Beitrage 2ur 
Kenntniss des japanischen Klebreisses,” Inaug.-Dissert., Strassburg, 1886 ; 
Zimmermann, Bot. Microtechnique, 1893, p. 228. 
+ Macdougal, Minnesota Bot. Studies, no. 9, pt. viii., April 1896. 
