138 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 



the plant all this nutritious little feast. In the course of three 

 or four days the tentacles again expand and prepare themselves 

 for another capture. 



There are several reasons which lead me to believe that these 

 unique and most wonderful organs of the Drosera are a direct 

 and special development from the common simple mushroom 

 glands, which are found on many plants, and which have for 

 their primary function to absorb moisture and ammonia from the 

 atmosphere and from rains. . I found on the calyx and flower 

 stem of the Drosera an abundance of these mushroom glands. 

 Indeed the flower stem with its buds furnishes by reason of them 

 an exceedingly beautiful object for the microscope, both in a 

 natural state and when prepared by double staining. 



I have found it quite a general rule as regards plants, that 

 whatever organs, such as stellate hairs or glands, the leaves may 

 possess, the calyx and stem of the flower will show them in far 

 greater luxuriance and beauty. The stellate hairs of the Deutzia, 

 the protons, and the Shepherdias, are far more numerous and 

 striking on the flower buds than on the leaves. The mushroom 

 glands which are found on the leaves of the Saxifrage and Pin- 

 guicula, are multiplied many fold in number and attractiveness 

 on the calyx and flower stem of these plants. So I regard that 

 this was once the case with the Drosera ; and that the mushroom 

 glands, which are now found on the flower, were then common 

 to the leaves. A process of evolution has transformed them on 

 the leaves into those wonderful motile arms adapted to the 

 capture of insects, but has left them unchanged on the flower, 

 where that function would be of no use to the plant. I 

 occasionally find in my preparations a solitary mushroom gland 

 among the tentacles of the leaf a remnant of a race that has been- 

 supplanted. There is found in Portugal a plant very similar to 

 the Drosera, the Drosophyllum, which has still only the mush- 

 room glands on its leaves, and catches insects in great quantity 

 by loading them down with the viscid secretion which these 

 glands abundantly pour forth. 



To exhibit the very delicate structure of the leaf and tentacles 

 of the Drosera, it is necessary to color them slightly. The 



