146 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



racteristic of striped muscular fibre even more con- 

 spicuous than ordinary. Granular matter and oil 

 globules exist in abundance, and give evidence of 

 partial solution. Some of the same meat kept moist 

 under a bell-glass, side by side with the flowers that 

 formed the subject of experiment, showed little or 

 no trace of disorganisation or putrefaction. 



The action of litmus paper is rather puzzling ; at 

 first, the juice of the tubes was neutral, or only faintly 

 acid, but after the meat had been allowed to remain 

 for some days, an alkaline reaction was evidenced 

 by the appearance of a blue tinge on previously 

 reddened litmus. For the present, then, we state 

 merely that the muscular fibre was partially dissolved, 

 and that certain changes in the appearance of the 

 cell-contents took place. More than this it would 

 be rash to afiirm.^ 



Here terminates our observations on insectivorous 

 plants. It will have been remarked during our pro- 

 gress through the preceding chapters, that there arc 

 grades of perfection in the modes by which animal 

 food is obtained. In the more highly developed 

 forms, as in the Sundews, the Vcnus's Fly-trap, the 

 Butterworts, and the Pitcher-plants, the structure of 

 certain parts is adapted for the capture of insects, 

 which are afterwards covered with an acid secretion 



' " Gardener's Chronicle " (Dr. Masters), April, 1876, p. 470. 



