Chap. IX, ALKALOID POISONS. 201 



of two other leaves, after an immersion for 2 hrs. in a stronger 

 solution, of one part of the citrate to 218 of water, became of an 

 opaque, pale pink colour, which before long disappeared, leaving 

 them white. One of these two leaves had its blade and 

 tentacles greatly inflected; the other hardly at all; but the 

 protoplasm in the cells of both was aggregated down to the 

 bases of the tentacles, with the spherical masses in the cells 

 close beneath the glands blackened. After 24 hrs. one of these 

 leaves was colourless, and evidently dead. 



Sulphate of Quinine. — Some of this salt was added to 

 water, which is said to dissolve yooo P^^^ ^^ i^s weight. 

 Five leaves were immersed, each in thirty minims of this solu- 

 tion, which tasted bitter. In less than 1 hr. some of them had 

 a few tentacles inflected. In 3 hrs. most of the glands became 

 whitish, others dark-coloured, and many oddly mottled. After 

 6 hrs. two of the leaves had a good many tentacles inflected, but 

 this very moderate degree of inflection never increased. One of 

 the leaves was taken out of the solution after 4 hrs., and placed 

 in water; by the next morning some lew of the inflected 

 tentacles had re-expanded, showing that they were not dead; 

 but the glands were still much discoloured. Another leaf not 

 included in the above lot, after an immersion of 3 hrs. 15 m., 

 was carefully examined; the protoplasm in the cells of the 

 outer tentacles, and of the short green ones on the disc, had 

 become strongly aggregated down to their bases ; and I distinctly 

 saw that the little masses changed their positions and shapes 

 rather rapidly ; some coalescing and again separating. I was 

 surprised at this fact, because quinine is said to arrest all move- 

 ment in the white corpuscles of the blood ; but as, according to 

 Binz,* this is due to their being no longer supplied with oxygen 

 by the red corpuscles, any such arrestment of movement could 

 not be expected in Drosera. That the glands had absorbed some 

 of the salt was evident from their change of colour ; but I at 

 first thought that the solution might not have travelled down 

 the cells of the tentacles, where the protoplasm was seen in 

 active movement. This view, however, I have no doubt, is 

 erroneous, for a leaf which had been immersed for 3 hrs. in the 

 quinine solution was then placed in a little solution of one part of 

 carbonate of ammonia to 218 of water ; and in 30 m. the glands 

 and the upper cells of the tentacles became intensely black, with 

 the protoplasm presenting a very unusual appearance; for it 



'Quarterly Journal of Microscoj)ical Scieuce,' April 1874, i^. 185. 



