134 



from two supporters directed towards the east, the elonga- 

 tion of the young shoots will move pretty generally in the 

 arc between B and C. (How is it then with those plants that 

 turn from the light ? Rep.) If the plant only possess a high 

 irritability, it will turn towards the early rays of the sun and 

 seek a supporter to the left ; but if the plant require a longer 

 influence of the light to determine its direction the plant will 

 turn to the right. 



If this explanation were correct we should perhaps be able 

 to determine at will the flexion or winding of plants ; it would 

 only be necessary to remove those supporters towards which 

 the plant tends or to place them on the opposite side ; but as 

 observation shows, ah 1 this is of no use. And how would the 

 turning to the right and left on one and the same tendril, as 

 occurs in Bryonia, be explained ? 



In A. Curtis's Enumeration of the plants growing sponta- 

 neously around Wilmington, in North Carolina*, we find a 

 description of the remarkable leaves of Dionaea Muscipula, 

 of which instructive figures have already been published in 

 various works. Sometimes Mr. Curtis found the entrapped 

 fly enveloped in a mucous substance which appeared to act 

 upon it as a dissolving medium, upon which he came to the sup- 

 position that the insect might be employed in the nourishing 

 of the plant. I will merely observe respecting the secretion of 

 the fluid which is observed on the closed leaves, that it is a 

 consequence of the water collected by the transpiration of the 

 leaves and precipitated in the closed space. And this water 

 is, in a climate so warm as that of South Carolina, the cause of 

 the dissolution of the imprisoned insect. 



M. Morren has published f some new observations on the 

 catalepsy of the flowers ofDracocephalumAustriacum and Mol- 

 davicum which are connected with those, respecting which w r e 

 gave a notice in last year's report. The author observed these 

 phaenomena hitherto in Dracocephalum Virginianum, Austri- 

 acumsLudMoldavicum; in the first species the so-called catalepsy 

 is perceptible to a high degree, in the second it is less consider- 

 able, and in the third still less. The outer relations are very 

 completely and accurately described in this memoir, by which 



* Hooker's Companion to the Botanical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 5. 

 f Notes sur la Catalepsie des Dracocephalum Austriacum et Moldavicum. 

 Bullet, de 1'Acad. des Scienc. de Bruxelles, 1837, p. 390. 



