424 Pi'of- LiNDLEv 0)1 flic Anatomy of the Roots o/'OplirydecP. 



water. He also finds the Salep of the shops consisting, with the exception of 

 a few grains of unchanged starch, in great part of swelled, torn, gelatinous 

 skins, whicli become of a magnificent hlne when moistened with the aqueous 

 solntion of iodine. {Ilisfoii-e des Drogues Simples, i. 57^^-) 



Raspail speaks of the new tubercles of Orchis as being ricli in faecula, and 

 he supposes that those chemists who have not i)een able to find it, examined 

 old shrivelled roots whose starch had been consumed by the plant in its 

 growth, instead of newly-formed roots. (Si/st. de Cliim. Organique, p. 54.) 



Finally, M. Payen, in his recent memoir upon Amidon, of which the first 

 part, without the plates, is all that I have yet seen {Aim. des Se., n. s., x. 

 2G.), describes Salep as containing grains of fa?cula, formed into amorphous 

 masses which fill the cells. "Ce caractère," he adds, "dépend sans doute 

 de la temperature élevée à laquelle la desiccation a commencé ; les tubercles 

 étant alors très humides la fécule a dû former empois en s'hydratant dans 

 chaque cellule; de la encore la demitransparence de la plupart des petits tu- 

 bercules secs." 



The following account of the anatomy of the roots of Ophrydeous plants 

 will show that, notwithstanding- the assertions of so many French writers 

 upon Salep, these tubercles contain very little starch, and that these authors 

 have mistaken for amylaceous matter what Berzclius terms vegetable mucus, 

 ant! Caventon and Meisner a principle resembling Bassorine, the organic cha- 

 racters of which, in these plants, are exti'cmely curious. 



The tubercles which form the roots of many South African Ophri/ded' pre- 

 sent, when dried, the appearance of bags filled with small pebbles ; the surface 

 of the roots being coarsely granidar, as if the epidermis had contracted over 

 hard bodies in the inside. This is very remarkable in the dried fusiform roots 

 of Disa multifida. 



If a fresh root of Safj/ri/ini pallidnm is divided transversely, the cause of 

 tiiis appearance becomes evident. With its soft parenchyma are mixed a 

 great quantity of tougii, firm, oval nodules, clear as water, and often twenty 

 times as large as the cells which surround tliem. Tliese nodules are easily se- 

 parated from the tissue in which they are iud:>edde<l, when they are found to 

 be irregular polyedrons, rese!ni)ling pebbles of cut rock crystal. Tl)eir fa- 



