112

Scientific Memoirs by Medical Officers of the Army of India.

peculiarily regular arrangement, and differing from ordinary lenticels in that the
developing layers are not sharply circumscribed inferiorly.

     The abundance of air entangled amongst the packing cells makes it a diffi-
cult matter for water to gain direct access to the tissues through the white zones.

     This is probably a provision against the fact that in its natural habitat the
palm is likely to have its roots periodically covered with water.

     The root cap shows a division into an inner and an outer portion, but nothing
peculiarly worthy of note was noticed. The appearance of the root cap and the
growing point is represented in figure 9 of Plate III under a low magnification.

     The branch roots originate from the pericycle and show nothing worthy of
remark.

     As regards cell contents, no starch was detected anywhere. The outer hypo-
dermal ring cells often showed dark granular contents, giving no reaction with any
of the reagents at the writer's disposal.

     A few hexagonal tabular crystals were seen in the cortex. Along the strands
of sclerenchyma scattered through the cortex, rows of very small sphaeraphides
were seen, each apparently enclosed in a little intercellular space between the
strand and the surrounding cortical cells.