Life Movements in Plants, Volume IIBose, Jagadis Chandra
Science
Life Movements in Plants, Volume II
Bose, Jagadis Chandra
Growth (Plants); Plants -- Irritability and movements
"Many plant organs, especially foliage and floral leaves take up,
towards evening, positions other than those they occupy by day. Petals
and perianth leaves, for example, bend outwards by day so as to open the
flower, and inwards at night so as to close it.... Many foliage leaves
also may be said to exhibit opening and closing movements, not merely
when they open and close in the bud but also when arranged in pairs on
an axis, they exhibit movements towards and away from each other. In
other cases, speaking generally, we may employ the terms _night
position_ and _day position_ for the closed and open conditions
respectively. The night position may also be described as the _sleep
position_." After reviewing the various theories proposed, he proceeds
to say "that a completely satisfactory theory of nyctitropic pulvinus
movements is not yet forthcoming. Such a theory can only be established
after new and exhaustive experimental research."
[39] Jost--_Ibid_, p. 500.
The difficulties of the experimental reinvestigation here called for
towards clearing up and explanation of the subject are sufficiently
great; they are further increased by the fact that these diurnal
movements may be brought about by different agencies independent of each
other. Thus in _Crocus_ and in _Tulip_, the movement of opening during
rise of temperature has been shown by Pfeffer to be due to differential
growth in the inner and outer halves of the perianth. I shall in this
connection show that a precisely opposite movement of closing is induced
in _Nymphæa_ under similar rise of temperature. I shall for convenience
distinguish the differential growth under temperature variation as
_Thermonasty_ proper. Again certain leaflets open in light, and close in
darkness in the so-called sleep position. Intense light, however,
produces the 'midday sleep'--an effect which is apparently similar to
that of darkness. The determining factor of these movements is the
variation of light.
There are other instances of diurnal movement, far more numerous, which
cannot be explained from considerations given above. It has therefore
been suggested that the "Day and night positions may arise by the
combined action of geotropism and heliotropism. Thus Vochting (1888)
observed in the case of _Malva verticillatta_, that the leaves, when
illuminated from below, turned their laminæ downwards during the day,
but during the night became erect geotropically. The sleep movements in
leaves and flowers, referred to above, cannot however be explained by
assuming such a combination of heliotropism and geotropism."[40]
[40] For further information on the subject of Nyctitropism, _cf._--
Pfeffer--_Ibid_, Vol. II (1903), p. 112;
Jost--_Ibid_, pp. 500, 507;
Vines--Physiology of Plants (1886), pp. 406, 543.
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