Botanists' concerns

Usage examples of plants.

Any one who will consider this list will see that the young plants selected for observation, fairly represent the whole vegetable series excepting the lowest cryptogams, and the movements of some of the latter when mature will hereafter be described.

Thus, the great sweeps made by the stems of twining plants, and by the tendrils of other climbers, result from a mere increase in the amplitude of the ordinary movement of circumnutation.

The two which have interested us most are, firstly, the fact that with some seedling plants the uppermost part alone is sensitive to light, and transmits an influence to the lower part, causing it to bend.

All these observations are liable to several causes of error, but we believe, from what will hereafter be shown with respect to the movements of the radicles of other plants, that they may be largely trusted.

The cabbage was one of the first plants, the seedlings of which were observed by us, and we did not then know how far the circumnutation of the different parts was affected by light.

The circumnutation, also, of the leaves of fullydeveloped plants will hereafter be described.

On the next day the plants were placed in a completely darkened room, and at each observation were illuminated as much as possible from vertically above by a small wax taper.

THE circumnutating movements of the several parts or organs of a considerable number of seedling plants have been described in the last chapter.

Whether these would have had the power of producing two independent plants in the following summer, we do not know.

The fact of tubers being formed by the foregoing three widely distinct plants, makes us believe that their protection from animals at an early age and whilst tender, is one at least of the advantages gained by the remarkable elongation of the petioles of the cotyledons, together with their power of penetrating the ground like roots under the guidance of geotropism.

We should remember that plants in a state of nature would probably secrete in 48 hours much more than the above large amount, for their roots would continue all the time absorbing sap from the plant on which they were parasitic.

With many kinds of plants, the radicle, whilst still enclosed within the seed and likewise after its first protrusion, lies in a straight line with the future hypocotyl and with the longitudinal axis of the cotyledons.

It is a curious fact that the hypocotyls of some plants, which are but little developed and which never raise their cotyledons above the ground, nevertheless inherit a slight tendency to arch themselves, although this movement is not of the least use to them.

From the several cases now given, which refer to widely distinct plants, we may infer that there is some close connection between the reduced size of one or both cotyledons and the formation, by the enlargement of the hypocotyl or of the radicle, of a socalled bulb.

It is not surprising that one cotyledon alone should sometimes have been thus affected, for with certain plants, for instance the cabbage, the cotyledons are at first of unequal size, owing apparently to the manner in which they are packed within the seed.