10 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
The tufts of hairs on the numerous papille covering the 
rhizome appear to act as traps for the mycorhizal hyphe, the 
latter being attracted by the presence of some chemotaxic 
substance formed as a result of the changes going on in the 
walls of the hairs especially at their tips, which seem to make 
suitable growing places for fungoid hyphe. The hyphe pass 
down the hairs and through the outer layers of the rhizome 
without forming coils in the cells; enter the deeper lying cells 
and form coils there, and then pass on to the mediocortex where 
they are ultimately absorbed and converted into food materials 
for the host plant. 
This tends to strengthen Frank’s view that the fungus is a 
living organism captured for the benefit of the host plant. 
An important point bearing on his comparison of such a 
“host”? to a carnivorous plant is the behaviour of the hyphe 
towards the nuclei of the cells. 
Inno case could we make out an enlargement of the hyphe in 
the neighbourhood of the nucleus in cells outside the medio- 
cortex; the nucleus was not perceptibly larger in the cells con- 
taining coils of mycelium than in those towards the epidermal 
layers in which such coils were absent. No bladder-like swellings 
were observed similar to those described by Groom,! in Thismia 
Aseroc (Ber.),a saprophytic monocotyledon belonging to the order 
Burmanniaceze. In some cells of the mediocortex a peculiar 
semblance to swollen ends of hyphee has been observed near the 
nucleus, but this appearance was found to be brought about by 
the shrunken protoplasm becoming cup-shaped, with one rim very 
much thickened. 
Starch is most abundant in cells in which the hyphe are 
in a state of decomposition. In the mediocortex little granules 
in groups occur along the strands of hyphee, and increase in 
proportion as the absorption of the hyphee in the cells proceeds. 
This makes it doubtful if the hyphe obtain any food matter 
from the host after they have once been attracted into the tissues 
(fig. 5, 0). 
The peculiar characters of the hairs in this instance, and 
the histological features of the infected cells point to the host 
1 Ann. Bot. 18965. 
