58 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



drops rolled off the leaf. On another occasion in 

 which a leaf, with an enclosed bit of roast meat, 

 spontaneously opened after eight days, there was so 

 much secretion in the furrow over the midrib that it 

 trickled down. A large crushed fly was placed on a 

 leaf from which a small portion at the base of one 

 lobe had previously been cut away so that an open- 

 ing was left, and through this the secretion continued 

 to run down the foot-stalk during nine days — that is, 

 for as long a time as it was observed." 



Aggregation, which was insisted upon in our 

 remarks on the Sundews, may be seen to take place 

 very quickly in the glands of the Dioncea, after 

 contact with nitrogenous subjects, every cell having 

 its contents aggregated, in a beautiful manner, into 

 dark, or pale purple, or colourless, globose masses 

 of protoplasm. The function of the little stellate 

 projections, with eight radiating arms, not having 

 been demonstrated can only be conjectured. 



From these details of the structure of the leaves 

 we are enabled to correlate them with their move- 

 ments. When an insect touches one of the sentinel 

 filaments, on an expanded leaf, the irritation is at 

 once communicated, and the lobes close together, 

 with the captured insect enclosed between them, its 

 struggles, in so far as they touch the filaments, only 

 serving to accelerate the closing. The interlocking 

 marginal spines prevent any escape, except in the 



