Page:Insectivorous Plants, Darwin, 1899.djvu/73

 cut off close beneath the glands,―by the glands absorbing various fluids or matter dissolved out of certain bodies,―by exosmose,―and by a certain degree of heat. On the other hand a temperature of about 150° Fahr. (65°.5 Cent.) does not excite aggregation; nor does the sudden crushing of a gland. If a cell is ruptured, neither the exuded matter nor that which still remains within the cell undergoes aggregation when carbonate of ammonia is added. A very strong solution of this salt and rather large bits of raw meat prevent the aggregated masses being well developed. From these facts we may conclude that the protoplasmic fluid within a cell does not become aggregated unless it be in a living state, and only imperfectly if the cell has been injured. We have also seen that the fluid must be in an oxygenated state, in order that the process of aggregation should travel from cell to cell at the proper rate.

Various nitrogenous organic fluids and salts of ammonia induce aggregation, but in different degrees and at very different rates. Carbonate of ammonia is the most powerful of all known substances; the absorption of $$\frac{1}{134400}$$ of a grain (.000482 mg.) by a gland suffices to cause all the cells of the same tentacle to become aggregated. The first effect of the carbonate and of certain other salts of ammonia, as well as of some other fluids, is the darkening or blackening of the glands. This follows even from long immersion in cold distilled water. It apparently depends in chief part on the strong aggregation of their cell-contents, which thus become opaque and, do not reflect light. Some other fluids render the glands of a brighter red; whilst certain acids, though much diluted, the poison of the cobra-snake, &c., make the glands perfectly white and opaque; and this seems to depend on the coagulation of their contents without any aggregation. Nevertheless, before being thus affected, they are able, at least in some cases, to excite aggregation in their own tentacles.