Disease in plantsWard, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Science
Disease in plants
Ward, H. Marshall (Harry Marshall)
Plant diseases
Must we not conclude, then, that this difficulty of reaching the
nuclear-protoplasm is owing to the fact that it is nourished and
influenced directly only by the cell-protoplasm? That the
cell-protoplasm is its environment, and not so directly the outer world?
We may influence the cell-protoplasm--we may make it work harder or less
actively, respire vigorously or slowly, build up and break down in
various different ways, or at different rates, and so forth, _within
limits_; but it is nevertheless cell-protoplasm of its specific kind,
with its own range of molecular variations and activities within these
limits, and it supplies the nuclear-protoplasm with what it wants so
long as these limits are not exceeded. Consequently, while it is very
easy to make the cell-protoplasm vary within the limits of its range, it
is not easy to induce it to vary its effects on the nuclear-protoplasm
to such an extent or in such a way that the latter is permanently or
materially altered in constitution.
Nevertheless it would appear that cases do occur where the
nuclear-protoplasm _is_ reached and affected by external stimuli, as
evinced by some of the phenomena of hybridisation and of cross-and
self-fertilisation, because we find the results expressed in the
mingling of the characters of parents, in strengthened or enfeebled
progeny, and even in the appearance of unexpected properties, which,
from the facts of Reproduction, we know must have taken their origin in
some alteration of the nuclear substance of the embryo.
Here, however, we know in most cases that the principal agent
which has reached the nuclear-protoplasm, is another portion of
nuclear-protoplasm. In hybridisation, one which has been fed and
influenced by cell-protoplasm of a very different plant; in
cross-fertilisation, one fed and influenced by the cell-protoplasm of a
different plant of the same species, and in self-fertilisation, one fed
and influenced by the same cell-protoplasm.
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