Function of the Septal Glands in Kniphofia. 1 3 
diameter of which coincides with that of the septum. This 
area is fairly constant at all levels except that of the neck 
and of the extreme base of the gland, where it diminishes, 
gradually in the latter case, rather more rapidly in the former. 
The lumen is wider in the upper and lower extremities of 
the gland than in the middle (Fig. 3), where the cells on 
either side approximate, especially at the inner margin of the 
gland. 
II. The Minute Structure of the Cells which 
COMPOSE THE GLAND. 
The gland-tissue consists of — 
(1) A single layer of epidermal cells ; 
(2) A variable number of layers (generally four or five) of 
modified parenchymatous cells, which lie behind the 
epidermal cells, and to which I shall henceforth refer 
as the sub-epidermal cells. 
Behind the sub-epidermal cells lie the ordinary unmodified 
parenchymatous cells of the septum, and the fibro-vascular 
tissue. There are from eight to twelve small fibro-vascular 
bundles in each lateral half of the septum ; these bundles 
arise at fairly regular intervals, and are offshoots from the 
fibro-vascular tissue running vertically in the central axis of 
the ovary. They bend outwards at a more or less acute 
angle, and, running nearly horizontally outwards in the 
septum, finally curve round into the wall of the ovary and 
there resume their vertical course (Fig. 1 ,/. v .). Since these 
bundles sometimes run in the unmodified parenchymatous tissue 
of the septum, and sometimes between it and the glandular 
tissue, they do not form such a well-marked line of separation 
between the two, as is the case, e. g. in some (?) species of 
Gladiolus , in which plants moreover their course in the septum 
is vertical. 
To return to the minute structure of the gland-cells.— I 
shall begin by describing the histological appearances which 
are exhibited by a typical [a) epidermal, and ( b ) sub-epider- 
mal cell when quite young, such cells for example as are to 
