SENSITIVE PLANTS. 



233 



Similar motion of the 

 stamens towards the 

 pistil, but spontaneous, 

 takes place in the Lon- 

 don Pride and other 

 species of Saxifraga."- 

 This may be studied 

 also in that pretty 

 marsh-flower, the grass 

 of Parnassus {Par- 

 nassia palustris). In 

 this flower each of the 

 white petals has a 

 glandular appendage 

 at the base which 

 forms a portion of the 

 disc. It consists of a 

 crescent-shaped scale, 

 bearing on its margin 

 from sixteen to twenty 

 slender hair-like pedi- 

 cels, each of which 

 supports a globose 

 vesicle filled with fluid- 

 In the centre of the 

 flower is a rather largfe 



Fig. 36. — Grass of Parnassus 

 [Partiassia palustris). 



^ A. \V. Bennett, in " Popular Science Review," vol. xi. 

 (1872), p. 378. 



