164 



THE AMEKICAN MONTHLY 



[September, 



and mostly filled with a thinner, oily 

 fluid, probably somewhat diluted by 

 the water in which the berries are 

 soaked, in consequence of the thinner 

 walls of the cells ; the water in which 

 the berries were soaked will be found 

 to be a strong infusion of pepper — 

 pepper tea, in fact. These layers 

 form the outer coating, or pulp, 

 surrounding the real seed, which, 

 when divested of the pulp, becomes 

 " white pepper." This seed has a 

 thin outer coat or shell, brittle and 

 horn-like, composed of reddish, an- 

 gular cells, placed flatwise in two or 

 three layers and with an outer and 

 inner membrane or cuticle (Fig. ii, 

 c, d). The substance of the seed is 

 wholly composed of the long qua- 

 drangular cells (Figs. lo, 12), the 

 greater number of which are filled 

 with starch, and the others, inter- 

 spersed among the starch-cells, are 

 filled with oil. On applying potash 

 solution to a section of the seed, the 

 starch is seen to quickly dissolve and 

 disappear, and the opaque oil-cells 

 are left suspended amid the now 

 empty starch-cells (Fig. 11) ; at first 

 the opaque cells are full of extremely 

 fine granular matter — or appear so 

 (Fig. 1 1 a) — but after the potash has 

 acted several minutes, they become 

 transparent, and the contents appear 

 as a drop of reddish oil within the 

 cell (Fig. II b), and the cells and 

 membrane each side of the seed 

 shell are clearly shown (Fig. 11 ^, d). 

 The relative arrangement and pro- 

 portion of the elements of the pepper 

 berry are shown in Fig. 12, which is 

 a section from surface to centre of a 

 dried berry restored by soaking. 



The most common adulterants of 

 black pepper are the stems of pepper, 

 oil-meal, wheat-flour, corn-cobs, 

 spoiled crackers, and lastly, buck- 

 wheat bran, which is said to be large- 

 ly used for the purpose, and would 

 be impossible to detect except by the 

 microscope. It has not yet come 

 under my observation as an adulter- 



ant in pepper, but its appearance in 

 turpentine (which is identical in car- 

 bolic acid and when boiled in pot- 

 ash) is shown in Fig. 13, and is to be 

 readily recognized. Capsicum is 

 used in black pepper, not so much to 

 adulterate it as to give the pungency 

 lacking in the adulterants, and thus 

 mask the adulterations by cheaper 

 ingredients. 



The Internal Hairs of Plants. 



BY J. KRUTTSCHNITT. 



I have read with much interest the 

 article on the " The Epidermal Or- 

 gans of Plants," published in the June 

 and July numbers of your Journal, 

 and devoting, as I do, also some at- 

 tention to researches in the same 

 field, I feel inclined to offer some re- 

 marks on the nature of the internal 

 hairs of Nuphar. The writer of the 

 article in question tries to establish a 

 connection between the structures he 

 finds in the leaves and petioles of 

 Nuphar with the epidermis, and con- 

 siders them the homologues of the 

 external hairs of other plants. Their 

 similarity with the hairs of the leaves 

 of Deutzia is really striking. 

 j The leaf of Nuphar may be sepa- 

 rated into four or five layers : the 

 upper cuticle containing many sto- 

 mata, a parenchymatous layer, an- 

 other parenchymatous layer contain- 

 ing the " stars," then the lower cuticle 

 which is also composed of two layers. 



The internal \\2\x% ol Niphar , I be- 

 lieve to stand in no relation to the 

 epidermis or to the stomata ; but as 

 an independent structure, the equiva- 

 lent of the vascular system of other 

 plants. In a preparation of a longi- 

 tudinal section of a petiole of Nuphar 

 the walls of the large canals are 

 studded with " stars," while in the 

 environing parenchymatous tissue the 

 stars disappear to make room for 

 elongated fibres, stretching up and 

 down from a short pedicel, thus : 



Fig. 30. 



