A curious motion which is not thoroughly understood is a slight gyratory movement observable in the tips of all living plants. It is possible that it is connected in some way with the earth’s rotation or is it merely a kind of groping, feeling gesture? In the case of roots, where the same gyrations occur, it undoubtedly serves that purpose. A revolving root tip makes a very efficient drill with which the hardy plant may bore a way through refractory soil. It is claimed that the great whirling sweeps made by tendrils of various climbers are merely amplifications of the circumnutation occurring in all plant terminals. Before leaving the subject of scientific movement in the plant world, it will be of interest to briefly consider some of the vegetable motions which are called forth by the stimulus of touch. Almost everyone is familiar with the Sensitive Plant and its double rows of tiny leaves. Touch any one of them and the whole group will instantly begin to contract and bend toward the stalk. We say begin, for so slow is the transmission of the impulse that one can readily see its progress, as one after another of the leaves respond. A motion which has forethought and design behind it occurs in the leaves of the famous and crafty Venus Fly-Trap. Two sections of leaves edged with teeth-like nerve-hairs form the two halves of an enticing-looking bowl and cover. The slightest contact with one of the delicate hairs will cause the trap to shut together and imprison any sweet-toothed member of the insect world which has happened to stray inside. An aquatic form of the same thing occurs in a species of Bladderwort which spreads a leaf-net cunningly shaped to look like a fish’s mouth. Frightened baby-fishes, accustomed to seek their mother’s throat in time of danger, sometimes swim in and, brushing certain nerve-hairs near the entrance, cause the lips to close and leave them to slow dissolution. Both sinister and scientific are the movements of carnivorous plants. Far from being static or quiescent, the plant world is a kingdom of energetic, vibratory motion--a motion which is cool and calculating and which rarely fails to accomplish its purpose. Even the protoplasm of microscopic plant cells is in constant movement. If a thin slice of Sycamore bark be placed under a microscope, a regular circulation of cell-liquid, suggestive of blood circulation in animals, can be observed. Plants show great skill in their use of water. It is their storage of liquid in their cells which makes their soft bodies rigid and so makes movement possible. This property sometimes called turgidity was discovered by the scientist De Vries in 1877, the same year that Pfeffer established the theory of osmosis. This latter is a phenomenon which physicists find very difficult to explain and involves the transmutation of one liquid into another through the medium of an intervening membrane.