ticles slowly change their positions, and travel from one end to the
other of the arms, but are commonly found near their bases. They are
present in the quadrifids of young bladders, when only about a third of
their full size. They do not resemble ordinary nuclei, but I believe
that they are nuclei in a modified condition, for when absent, I could
occasionally just distinguish in their places a delicate halo of
matter, including a darker spot. Moreover, the quadrifids of
Utricularia montana contain rather larger and much [page 404] more
regularly spherical, but otherwise similar, particles, which closely
resemble the nuclei in the cells forming the walls of the bladders. In
the present case there were sometimes two, three, or even more, nearly
similar particles within a single arm; but, as we shall hereafter see,
the presence of more than one seemed always to be connected with the
absorption of decayed matter.
The inner side of the collar (see the previous fig. 20) is covered with
several crowded rows of processes, differing in no important respect
from the quadrifids, except in bearing only two arms instead of four;
they are, however, rather narrower and more delicate. I shall call them
the bifids. They project into the bladder, and are directed towards its
posterior end. The quadrifid and bifid processes no doubt are
homologous with the papillae on the outside of the bladder and of the
leaves; and we shall see that they are developed from closely similar
papillae.
The Uses of the several Parts.—After the above long but necessary
description of the parts, we will turn to their uses. The bladders have
been supposed by some authors to serve as floats; but branches which
bore no bladders, and others from which they had been removed, floated
perfectly, owing to the air in the intercellular spaces. Bladders
containing dead and captured animals usually include bubbles of air,
but these cannot have been generated solely by the process of decay, as
I have often seen air in young, clean, and empty bladders; and some old
bladders with much decaying matter had no bubbles.
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