242 DKOSERA KOTUNDIFOLIA. CHAP. X. 



8 hrs. or 9 hrs., and was completed in from 22 hrs. to 

 30 hrs. from the time of inflection. After an interval 

 of a day or two, raw meat with saliva was placed on the 

 discs of these seventeen leaves, and when observed 

 next day, seven of the headless tentacles were inflected 

 over the meat as closely as the uninjured ones on 

 the same leaves; and an eighth headless tentacle 

 became inflected after three additional days. The 

 meat was removed from one of these leaves, and the 



\ * 



surface washed with a little stream of water, and after 

 three days the headless tentacle re-expanded for the 

 second time. These tentacles without glands were, how- 

 ever, in a different state from those provided with glands 

 and which had absorbed matter from the meat, for the 

 protoplasm within the cells of the former had under- 

 gone far less aggregation. From these experiments 

 with headless tentacles it is certain that the glands 

 do not, as far as the motor impulse is concerned, act in 

 a reflex manner like the nerve-ganglia of animals. 



But there is another action, namely that of aggrega- 

 tion, which in certain cases may be called reflex, and 

 it is the only known instance in the vegetable king- 

 dom. We should bear in mind that the process does 

 not depend on the previous bending of the tentacles, 

 as we clearly see when leaves are immersed in certain 

 strong solutions. Nor does it depend on increased 

 secretion from the glands, and this is shown by several 

 facts, more especially by the papilla?, which do not 

 secrete, yet undergoing aggregation, if given carbonate 

 of ammonia or an infusion of raw meat. When a gland 

 is directly stimulated in any way, as by the pressure of 

 a minute particle of glass, the protoplasm within the 

 cells of the gland first becomes aggregated, then that 

 in the cells immediately beneath the gland, and so 

 lower and lower down the tentacles to their bases ; 



