Francis E. Lloyd — 92 — Carnivorous Plants 



to the other. The facts are otherwise. There is a row of prop-cells 

 on only one edge, and the prop-cell is Only the middle cell of a three- 

 celled hypertrophied trichome, the basal cell of which is much enlarged, 

 while above it the middle cell is enormously large and ends in a small 

 knob-shaped cell terminating the trichome (72^15). In structure 

 they are, therefore, not at all different from the neighboring trapping 

 hairs, except for relative sizes of the component cells. The size of the 

 basal and middle cells is so large that, in sections which are bound to 

 be pretty complicated to the eye, they appear as two apposed and ad- 

 herent cells. GoEBEL represented them thus in his figures (7a and 76, 

 plate 16, 1 891). It is significant that Goebel showed a terminal cell 

 on only one of each pair of prop-cells, as he regarded them to be (Figs. 

 6 and 76). In this detail Goebel was correct. What he took for the 

 prop-cells along the shorter border of the ribbon-like arm are the scar- 

 like depressions, optically suggesting raised surfaces, which are really 

 dished out surfaces against which the prop-cells of the longer border 

 lay and to which they were attached {11 — 6). When the two 

 margins of the arms are torn apart in dissection, it happens more 

 frequently than otherwise that the whole of the prop-hair is torn away 

 from its moorings, leaving bare the depressed surface to which it was 

 attached. The depression so caused is spoon-shaped, the bottom being 

 formed of cells which have been more or less distorted by the pressure 

 of the prop-cell during growth {12 — 18). On the other hand, the prop- 

 cell is sometimes torn away from its basal cell, and remains on the 

 wrong margin, a perfidious witness whose evidence is hereby impeached. 



A striking analog of the prop-cells is to be found in the cystidia in 

 CopHnus atramentarius in which they serve to keep the slender gills 

 at a certain distance apart, allowing the free dispersal of spores, as 

 described by Buller (1922), in his Researches on Fungi, where he in- 

 troduces the engineering term "distance pieces" for the cystids. 

 Protruding from one gill, from which they arise, their free ends are 

 attached to the surface of the next gill. 



The size of the trap leaf in Genlisea repens, one of the smallest 

 species, is as follows. The footstalk is about i cm. in length support- 

 ing the bulb-shaped flask which is about i mm. long and 0.7 mm. 

 broad. The surmounting tube is about i cm. long, and 0.27 mm. in 

 outside diameter. The arms extend i cm. beyond the transverse mouth 

 and are little more than 0.5 mm. in width. In a large African species, 

 the traps are about three to five times the foregoing dimensions, the 

 tube being relatively shorter. The footstalk may be 5 cm. long, the 

 tube two and the arms 3 to 5 cm. long. The bulb is about 4 mm. long 

 and 2 mm. in diameter. The turns of the arms are looser and make a 

 larger angle with a transverse plane. 



The outer surface of the plant is supplied with a large number of 

 sessile globular, glandular trichomes, similar to those of Utricularia, 

 and which secrete mucilage {12 — 11). The trap, whose inner surface 

 is most complicated, has excited the wonder of all who have busied 

 themselves with this object. Darwin referred to it as "a contrivance 

 resembling an eel-trap though more complex." Goebel (1891) re- 

 marked of it that "it is in the highest degree remarkable; one might say 

 of it that it is constructed with over-weening care and anxiety so as 



