68 



the back of the anthers ; each arm is convolute, has a single 

 tooth on the inner margin, and bears the stigma in the form 

 of glandular hairs just within its point. The flowers are ex- 

 ceedingly fugitive, and so delicate and frail in texture when 

 newly blown as hardly to bear handling ; but plunged in 

 spirits of wine they become tough and like fine parchment. 

 By this process the anatomical structure of the petals of this 

 plant is remarkably well preserved, and exhibits some pecu- 

 liarities which deserve to be noticed, so far as the cellular 

 tissue is concerned. The parenchyma consists of ordinary 

 dodecaedral compressed cellules, each containing a transpa- 

 rent nucleus equal to about one-third of its own diameter ; 

 these cellules connect the veins, in which the spiral vessels, 

 and the young woody tissue encasing them, are beautifully 

 visible. Towards the margin of the petals the nuclei of the 

 cellules become much larger, more solid, and are evidently 

 composed of mucilage containing minute spherules. The 

 triangular bar near the base of the petals, which Mr. Rogers 

 describes as secreting honey, is composed precisely of the 

 same kind of tissue as the transparent part of those organs, 

 but the layers of cellules are more numerous, and the latter 

 contain a granular matter composed of minute spherules col- 

 lected together into a nucleus, which nearly fills the cavity 

 of each cellule. The granular state of the nucleus and its 

 great developement do not however abruptly commence and 

 terminate with the apparent limits of the bar ; but gradually 

 diminish until they alter into the small transparent nuclei 

 common to the rest of this tissue. The whole is included in 

 a Hcnslovian membrane of most unusual toughness, which 

 may be readily torn off the interjacent parenchyma. This 

 toughness of a part commonly too delicate to be detected at 

 all is possibly produced by the action of the spirits of wine 

 upon the vegetable tissue. I am not aware that it has ever 

 before been found in the floral envelopes. 



The tissue of the bar, above described, is singularly like 

 that of the small hard brown kernels in the pitchers of Ne- 

 penthes, of which I was the first to give an account in the 

 Ladies' Botany, vol. 2. p. 198. and which was subsequently 

 described in Professor Meyen's valuable memoir upon the 

 secreting organs of plants ; only in this instance the granular 

 tissue is entirely covered by the cuticle, and is diffused 



