196 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. [Cuap. X. 
opposite side from quickly re-expanding; so that the motor 
discharge must at first have been more powerful than 
after wards. 
When an object of any kind is placed on the disc, and the 
surrounding tentacles are inflected, their glands secrete more 
copiously and the secretion becomes acid, so that some in- 
fluence is sent to them from the discal glands. This change 
in the nature and amount of the secretion cannot depend on 
the bending of the tentacles, as the glands of the short central 
tentacles secrete acid when an object is placed on them, 
though they do not themselves bend. Therefore I inferred 
that the glands of the disc sent some influence up the sur- 
rounding tentacles to their glands, and that these reflected 
back a motor impulse to their basal parts; but this view 
‘was soon proved erroneous. It was found by many trials 
that tentacles with their glands closely cut off by sharp 
scissors often become inflected and again re-expand, still 
appearing healthy. One which was observed continued 
healthy for ten days after the operation. I therefore cut the 
glands off twenty-five tentacles, at different times and on 
different leaves, and seventeen of these soon became inflected, 
and afterwards re-expanded. The re-expansion commenced 
in about 8 hrs. or 9 hrs., and was completed in from 22 hrs. 
to 30 hrs. from the time of inflection. After an interval of 
a day or two, raw meat with saliva was placed on the discs. 
of these seventeen leaves, and when observed next day, seven 
of the headless tentacles were inflected over the meat as 
closely as the uninjured ones on the same leaves; and an 
eighth headless tentacle became inflected after three addi- 
tional days. The meat was removed from one of these leaves, 
and the surface washed with a little stream of water, and 
after three days the headless tentacle re-expanded for the 
second time. These tentacles without glands were, however, 
in a different state from those provided with glands and which 
had absorbed matter from the meat, for the protoplasm within. 
the cells of the former had undergone far less aggregation. 
From these experiments with headless tentacles it is certain 
that the glands do not, so far as the motor impulse is concerned, 
act in a reflex manner like the nerve-ganglia of animals. 
But there is another action, namely that of aggregation, 
which in certain cases may be called reflex, and it is the only 
known instance in the vegetable kingdom. We should bear 
in mind that the process does not depend on the previous. 
