Lastly, bits of meat were placed on some glands; these were examined
after 23 hrs., as were others, which had apparently not long before
caught minute flies; but they did not present any [page 348] difference
from the glands of other hairs. Perhaps there may not have been time
enough for absorption. I think so as some glands, on which dead flies
had evidently long lain, were of a pale dirty purple colour or even
almost colourless, and the granular matter within them presented an
unusual and somewhat peculiar appearance. That these glands had
absorbed animal matter from the flies, probably by exosmose into the
viscid secretion, we may infer, not only from their changed colour, but
because, when placed in a solution of carbonate of ammonia, some of the
cells in their pedicels become filled with granular matter; whereas the
cells of other hairs, which had not caught flies, after being treated
with the same solution for the same length of time, contained only a
small quantity of granular matter. But more evidence is necessary
before we fully admit that the glands of this saxifrage can absorb,
even with ample time allowed, animal matter from the minute insects
which they occasionally and accidentally capture.
Saxifraga rotundifolia (?).—The hairs on the flower-stems of this
species are longer than those just described, and bear pale brown
glands. Many were examined, and the cells of the pedicels were quite
transparent. A bent stem was immersed for 30 m. in a solution of one
part of carbonate of ammonia to 109 of water, and two or three of the
uppermost cells in the pedicels now contained granular or aggregated
matter; the glands having become of a bright yellowish-green. The
glands of this species therefore absorb the carbonate much more quickly
than do those of Saxifraga umbrosa, and the upper cells of the pedicels
are likewise affected much more quickly. Pieces of the stem were cut
off and immersed in the same solution; and now the process of
aggregation travelled up the hairs in a reversed direction; the cells
close to the cut surfaces being first affected.
Primula sinensis.—The flower-stems, the upper and lower surfaces of the
leaves and their footstalks, are all clothed with a multitude of longer
and shorter hairs. The pedicels of the longer hairs are divided by
transverse partitions into eight or nine cells. The enlarged terminal
cell is globular, forming a gland which secretes a variable amount of
thick, slightly viscid, not acid, brownish-yellow matter.
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