276 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. Cuar. XI 
inflected ; though the inflection may last for many 
days. 
If the bending place of a tentacle receives an impulse 
from its own gland, the movement is always towards 
the centre of the leaf; and so it is with all the 
tentacles, when their glands are excited by immer- 
sion in a proper fluid. The short ones in the middle 
part of the disc must be excepted, as these do not 
bend at all when thus excited. On the other hand, 
when the motor impulse comes from one side of the 
disc, the surrounding tentacles, including the short 
ones in the middle of the disc, all bend with pre- 
cision towards the point of excitement, wherever this 
may be seated. This is in every way a remarkable 
phenomenon; for the leaf falsely appears as if en- 
dowed with the senses of an animal. It is all the 
more remarkable, as when the motor impulse strikes 
the base of a tentacle obliquely with respect to its 
flattened surface, the contraction of the cells must be 
confined to one, two, or a very few rows at one end. 
And different sides of the surrounding tentacles must 
be acted on, in order that all should bend with pre- 
cision to the point of excitement. 
The motor impulse, as it spreads from one or more 
glands across the disc, enters the bases of the sur- 
rounding tentacles, and immediately acts on the bend- 
ing place. It does not in the first place proceed up 
the tentacles to the glands, exciting them to reflect 
back an impulse to their bases. Nevertheless, some 
influence is sent up to the glands, as their secre- 
tion is soon increased and rendered acid; and then 
the glands, being thus excited, send back some other 
influence (not dependent on increased secretion, nor 
on the inflection of the tentacles), causing the proto- 
plasm to aggregate in cell beneath cell. This may 
