154 Miscellaneous. 
of iodine. I therefore conclude, in the case of Knautia arvensis, 
Coulter, that the nectary is a small cylinder under the style, and in 
Succisa pratensis, Meench., that it is a very peculiarly loose accumu- 
lation of cells at the base of the corolla, under the greatest lobe ; and 
I arrive at this conclusion because these parts are coloured the most 
darkly by iodine, and because their structure is analogous to that of 
nectaries in general. 
With respect to the contents of the cells of the nectary, we must 
carefully distinguish between the contents of the common cells and 
those of the pores. The contents of the former usually consist of a 
yellowish, greenish or uncoloured, transparent juice, and of a gra- 
nular matter, the grains of which are sometimes so small that they 
are scarcely visible, even with a magnifying power of 550, the whole 
having the appearance of a mass of slime interspersed with traces of 
grains. In most cases however the grains are clearly visible. Their 
colour varies considerably, but is limited to the different shades of 
yellow, green, gray, brown, and obscure violet, though the last is but 
very rarely observed. It did not occur once in the two hundred 
plants I examined last year. The colour of the grains is generally 
the most readily detected when they are congregated one upon the 
other in small clusters. The individual grains are generally colour- 
less and transparent. Sometimes in addition to the above-mentioned 
grains there are very large grains of the same globular form, but 
entirely transparent and free from colour, as in Pedicularis palus- 
tris, L. I need hardly mention, that there are also in the nectaries 
of plants, crystals, air-vesicles, &c., which have no reference to the 
present subject. 
The grains contained in the cells of the nectary are also in most 
cases coloured yellow or brown by iodine. 
In eleven plants iodine obviously colours the grains blue, and thus 
proves that they are starch. In four others it colours them a bluish- 
brown or a brownish-blue: Armeria maritima, Willd., Hyoscyamus 
niger, L., Hypocheris radicata, L., and Sinapis alba, L. ‘The eleven 
plants the grains of which become blue by the application of iodine 
are the following: Pedicularis palustris, L., Arenaria media, L., 
Mentha arvensis, L., Malva moschata, L., Malva sylvestris, L., Cli- 
nopodium vulgare, L., Convolvulus sepium, L., Conv. arvensis, L., 
Lychnis sylvestris, Hoppe, Lychnis dioica, L., Bryonia dioica, L. 
In the nectary of Pedicularis palustris only the above-mentioned 
larger and transparent grains take the blue colour. The nectary 
of Arenaria media, L., is the base of the sepals, where they abut 
upon the filaments, and the epidermis only contains starch. The 
nectaries of Lychnis sylvestris and dioica are on the gymnophorum 
between the bases of the petals and their processes. In Lychnis 
sylvestris I found evidence of starch only in the male flower, and in 
L. dioica only in the female flower. The grains of starch vary very 
much in size. The diameter of the largest is only about one-fourth 
of the diameter of a common grain of potato-starch, and the smallest 
grains are scarcely visible even with a magnifying power of 550. 
The form of the grains is irregular, but more or less globular. ‘Though 
coloured by iodine they remain transparent, and generally show a 
