Life Movements in Plants, Volume IBose, Jagadis Chandra
Science
Life Movements in Plants, Volume I
Bose, Jagadis Chandra
Growth (Plants); Plants -- Irritability and movements
As regards the possibility of light exerting any marked influence
on the movement of the Palm tree, I have shown from study of
time-relations of the movement, that this could not be the case.
Moreover, it is impossible for light to reach the living tissue through
the thick layer of bark that surrounds the tree. That the effect
of light is negligible will appear from the accounts of following
experiments, where the possibility of the effect of changing intensity
of light is excluded by maintaining the plant in constant darkness, or
in constant light.
The employment of the large Palm was obviously impracticable in these
investigations. I, therefore, searched for other plant-organs in which
the movement under variation of temperature was similar to that of the
Date Palm. I found that the horizontally spread leaves of vigorous
specimens of _Arenga saccharifera_ growing in a flower pot executed
movements which were practically the same as that of the Faridpur tree.
The leaf moved downwards with rise of temperature and _vice versâ_.
There are many practical advantages in working with a small specimen.
It can easily be placed under glass cover or taken to a glass house,
thus completely eliminating the troublesome disturbance caused by the
wind.
_Diurnal movement in continued darkness: Experiment 2._--The plant was
placed in a dark room and records taken continuously for three days.
These did not differ in any way from the normal records taken in a
glass house under daily variation of light and darkness. Exposure of
plant to darkness for the very prolonged period of a week or more,
undoubtedly interferes with the healthy photo-tonic condition of the
plant. But such unhealthy condition did not make its appearance in the
first few days.
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THE MOVEMENT.
There may be a misgiving that the movement of the tree might be due to
physical effect of temperature. If the upper strip of a differential
thermometer be made of the more expansible brass and the lower of
iron, the compound strip bends down with the rise of temperature.
Similarly the movement of the tree might be due to the upper half being
physically more expansible. It would have been possible to discriminate
the physical from the physiological action by causing the death of
the tree; in that case physical movement would have persisted, while
the physiological action would have disappeared. As this test was not
practicable, I tried the effect of physiological depression on the
periodic movement of the leaf of _Arenga saccharifera_.
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