LATEX-CELLS. 



95 



bounded bj' turgeseent 

 tissues, their contents 

 readily escape through 

 any incision. 



Latex-cells are not 

 restricted to imy one 

 organ of the plant, but 

 ma}-, and generally do, 

 occur in all parts, and 

 may be associated with 

 more than one tissue- 

 system. The}- are, how- 

 ever, usual!}' found in 

 parenchyma, and run in 

 the same general direc- 

 tion as the fibi'o- vascular 

 bundles near which they 

 lie. For convenience, they may be div 



b 



ided into the simple and 

 the complex. 



287. The simple 

 forms are single 

 cells, which ma}- be 

 much and ^-ariously 

 branched. Subse- 



quent to the devel- 

 opment of one of 

 these cells in a plant, 

 and when it has ex- 

 tended its ramifica- 

 tions throughout the 

 different organs, a 

 new cell may inde- 

 pendently give rise to 

 new branchings, and 

 to a new system, some 

 of the branches of 

 the two cells perhaps 

 becoming confluent. 

 Good examples of the 

 simple forms are af- 



Fio. 70. Longitudinal section througli a sepal of Chelidonium majus, showing latex- 

 tubes. (Weiss.) 



Fig. 77. Latex-tubps composed of confluent cells: a, in the root; b, in the stem of 

 Chelidonium majus. (De Bary.) 



