48 Harshberger. — An Abnormal Development of 



proximally. This reverses the direction of the bundles, and 

 brings the phloem again into its true position on the lower side 

 (V, PL VI, Fig. 6) of the leaves C 1 , E\ O 1 . The three bundle 

 traces must have twisted, and divided a little back of the point 

 A 1 , which thus gives the peculiar bundle anatomy at A 1 (PI. 

 VI, Fig. 6). We have in Fig. 6 a central rhizomatic tissue (A 1 ), 

 with leaf tissues in the centre above and on each side. Each 

 wing of tissue receives a bundle trace from the main axis cylin- 

 der. A solution can be found apparently for the curious bundle 

 arrangement if it be considered that a twist in the fibre occurs. 

 Fraustadt found the whole mass of parenchymatous tissue in 

 the underground stem and leaf petioles crowded with oval 

 starch grains. The sections of "aerial rhizome " showed the 

 whole parenchyma densely packed with starch, which made 

 the section somewhat opaque. 



The axillary structures now referred to are clearly homo- 

 logues of the buds or bulbils encountered in such plants as 

 Lilinm Bulbiferum, and Ranunculus Ficaria, and they suggest 

 the possibility of vegetative or non-sexual reproduction in this 

 particular case. It might have been possible to have grown 

 new individuals from the axillary vegetative branches, but the 

 suggestion of this idea came after the plant had been killed 

 and preserved in alcohol. Authorities can only therefore be 

 cited which seem to sustain this belief in non-sexual propaga- 

 tion in Dioncea. Miss Elizabeth H. Willis records an interest- 

 ing case in point, that was noticed on a plant of Dioncea in her 

 possession. "The leaves have continued to increase by 

 sending out runners, which have taken root all around the 

 parent plant, until now the group of independent branches 

 (except for the creeping recumbent stem, which seems to unite 

 them together), numbers about twenty-five." 1 A curious 

 record is made by Hogg, 2 "that the leaves of Dioncea, if 

 placed in damp moss, will take root and produce young plants 

 on the margin." Nitschke 3 has recorded the production of 

 adventitious plants on the leaves of Drosera, a near relative 



1 Botanical Gazette, Vol. X, 1885, p. 214. 



2 Nat. Hist, of the Vegetable Kingdom, 1858, p. 84. 



3 Botanische Zeitung. 



