262 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. Cuar, XI. 
CHAPTER XI. 
RECAPITULATION OF THE CHIEF OBSERVATIONS ON 
DrosERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. 
As summaries have been given to most of the 
chapters, it will be sufficient here to recapitulate, as 
briefly as I can, the chief points. In the first chapter 
a preliminary sketch was given of the structure of the 
leaves, and of the manner jn which they capture 
insects. This is effected by drops of extremely viscid 
fluid surrounding the glands and by the inward 
movement of the tentacles. As the plants gain most 
of their nutriment by this means, their roots are very 
poorly developed; and they often grow in places 
where hardly any other plant except mosses can 
exist. The glands have the power of absorption, 
. besides that of secretion. They are extremely sen- 
sitive to various stimulants, namely repeated touches, 
the pressure of minute particles, the absorption of 
animal matter and of various fluids, heat, and gal- 
vanic action. A tentacle with a bit of raw meat on 
the gland has been seen to begin bending in 10 s, 
to be strongly incurved in 5 m., and to reach the 
centre of the leaf in kalf an hour. The blade of the 
leaf often becomes so much inflected that it forms a 
cup, enclosing any object placed on it. 
A gland, when excited, not only sends some in- 
fluence down its own tentacle, causing it to bend, but 
likewise to the surrounding tentacles, which become 
ineurved ; so that the bending place can be acted on 
by an impulse received from opposite directions, 
