Proceedings, 7 



few fibrillsB ; and many such plants grow on dry walls or in 

 poor sand, whence they can obtain but little water or 

 nourishment. All such plants, so far as I know them, have 

 a large development of cuticular appendages, which seems 

 specially designed to compensate for the deficiency of the 

 root-action. 



Some remarks in the ' American Monthly Microscopical 

 Journal ' for October, 1880, so exactly confirm this view that 

 I cannot forbear quoting them. The writer (Mr. Merriman), 

 after saying that the soil of South Florida is sandy and 

 barren, that the atmosphere abounds in the elements of 

 plant-growth, the winds being charged with moisture and 

 bearing minute quantities of nitric acid and saline compounds, 

 and the swamps furnishing abundance of salts of ammonia and 

 carbonic acid, goes on to observe: — 'To utilise these precious 

 products from the air it is necessary for plants to have 

 peculiar organs, such as absorbing glands, glandular hairs, 

 stellate hairs, protecting scales, and a variety of other special 

 appendages. All these are developed in remarkable pro- 

 fusion and perfection in the vegetation of Southern Florida. 

 Although the meagre soil produces no nutritious grasses, and 

 scarcely enough of an honest vegetation to keep a herbivorous 

 animal from starving, yet there is an abundant flora, such as 

 it is — au"-plants, parasitic growths, insectivorous plants, and 

 strange herbs seeking a livelihood in any other way than the 

 good old honest one of growing from the roots.' Mr. Merri- 

 man adds — ' We can scarcely examine the leaves or stems of 

 any plant growing in Southern Florida without discovering 

 some beautiful or striking modification of plant-hairs or 

 scales, or glands, or other absorbing or secreting organ.' 

 These facts and observations so fully prove that the hairs of 

 plants absorb water and thus compensate for deficient root- 

 action, and maintain that state of equilibrium between 

 absorption and transpiration which is necessary for the well- 

 being of every plant, that I think it almost unnecessary to 

 support my position by reasoning from analogy. I will 

 content myself with simply mentioning that root-hairs and 

 hairs growing in the atmosphere are alike in being composed 



