Page:Insectivorous Plants, Darwin, 1899.djvu/50

 to the exterior tentacles, causing them to bend ; and we have now to consider the effects which follow from the glands of the exterior tentacles being themselves touched. On several occasions, a large number of glands were touched only once with a needle or fine brush, hard enough to bend the whole flexible tentacle; and, though this must have caused a thousand-fold greater pressure than the weight of the above-described particles, not a tentacle moved. On another occasion forty-five glands on eleven leaves were touched once, twice, or even thrice, with a needle or stiff bristle. This was done as quickly as possible, but with force sufficient to bend the tentacles; yet only six of them became inflected,―three plainly, and three in a slight degree. In order to ascertain whether these tentacles which were not affected were in an efficient state, bits of meat were placed on ten of them, and they all soon became greatly incurved. On the other hand, when a large number of glands were struck four, five, or six times with the same force as before, a needle or sharp splinter of glass being used, a much larger proportion of tentacles became inflected; but the result was so uncertain as to seem capricious. For instance, I struck in the above manner three glands, which happened to be extremely sensitive, and all three were inflected almost as quickly as if bits of meat had been placed upon them. On another occasion I gave a single forcible touch to a considerable number of glands, and not one moved ; but these same glands, after an interval of some hours, being touched four or five times with a needle, several of the tentacles soon became inflected.

The fact of a single touch or even of two or three touches not causing inflection must be of some service to the plant; as, during stormy weather, the glands cannot fail to be occasionally touched by the tall blades of grass, or by other plants growing near; and it would be a great evil if the tentacles were thus brought into action, for the act of re-expansion takes a considerable time, and until the tentacles are re-expanded they cannot catch prey. On the other hand, extreme sensitiveness to slight pressure is of the highest service to the plant; for, as we have seen, if the delicate feet of a minute struggling insect press ever so lightly on the surfaces of two or three glands, the tentacles bearing these glands soon curl inwards and carry the insect with