Life Movements in Plants, Volume IIBose, Jagadis Chandra
Science
Life Movements in Plants, Volume II
Bose, Jagadis Chandra
Growth (Plants); Plants -- Irritability and movements
The light-dawn and thermal-dawn are more or less coincident, while the
thermal-noon is two hours later than the light-noon. A change in the
diurnal curve of movement due to thermal variation will thus be detected
at about 2 p.m. If the curve of daily movement of the plant-organ
closely resemble the diurnal thermographic curve, there can then be no
doubt of the causal relation of variation of temperature in the
production of the periodic movement. Two different classes of phenomena,
as already stated, arise however from the variation of temperature,
_thermonasty_ and _thermo-geotropism_. In the former, the movement is
autonomous, and determined in relation to the plant; in the latter, the
movement is related to the direction of external stimulus of gravity.
Further tests will be given later, to distinguish the phenomenon of
Thermonasty from that of Thermo-geotropism.
I shall in the succeeding papers describe the principal types of diurnal
movements as sketched above. The success of the investigation greatly
depends on the elaboration of automatic apparatus of precision, which
gives a continuous record of the diurnal movement of different plant
organs. The description of this Nyctitropic Recorder will be given in
the next paper.
SUMMARY.
The obscurities in the nyctitropic movement of plants arises from the
presence of numerous complicating factors.
In the diurnal movement of plants the most important factors are the
effects of light and darkness, of variation of temperature on
differential growth, and of thermal variation on geotropic curvature.
These three classes of phenomena may be discriminated from each other by
the following tests. The effects of light and darkness are most
pronounced in the morning when light appears, and in the evening when
light disappears. A pronounced flexure in the diurnal curve at these
periods indicates the dominant character of the phototropic action. The
effect of light can also be distinguished from that of temperature from
the fact that the period of maximum intensity of light, or _light-noon_,
is about two hours earlier than the _thermal-noon_, at which the
temperature is maximum.
A flexure of the diurnal curve about thermal noon, at which an inversion
takes place from rise to fall of temperature, indicates the effect of
temperature. The additional test of the effect of temperature is
furnished by the close resemblance of the diurnal curve of the plant
with the thermographic record for 24 hours.
Two different classes of phenomena arise from variation of
temperature--Thermonasty and Thermo-geotropism. In the former the
movement is autonomous and determined by the differential
growth-activity of the two sides of an anisotropic organ. In the latter
the movement is not in relation to the plant but directed by the
external stimulus of gravity.
XLVII.--DIURNAL MOVEMENT DUE TO ALTERNATION OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
_By_
SIR J. C. BOSE,
_Assisted by_
LALIT MOHAN MUKHERJI, B.Sc. (_Nawroji Scholar_).
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