The Elements of Botany, For Beginners and For SchoolsGray, Asa
Science
The Elements of Botany, For Beginners and For Schools
Gray, Asa
Plants
461. =Movements in Cells=, =or Cell-circulation=, sometimes called
_Cyclosis_, has been detected in so many plants, especially in
comparatively transparent aquatic plants and in hairs on the surface of
land plants (where it is easiest to observe), that it may be inferred to
take place in all cells during the most active part of their life. This
motion is commonly a streaming movement of threads of protoplasm,
carrying along solid granules by which the action may be observed and
the rate measured, or in some cases it is a rotation of the whole
protoplasmic contents of the cell. A comparatively low magnifying power
will show it in the cells of Nitella and Chara (which are cryptogamous
plants); and under a moderate power it is well seen in the Tape Grass of
fresh water, Vallisneria, and in Naias flexilis (Fig. 489). Minute
particles and larger greenish globules are seen to be carried along, as
if in a current, around the cell, passing up one side, across the end,
down the other and across the bottom, completing the circuit sometimes
within a minute or less when well warmed. To see it well in the cell,
which like a string of beads form the hairs on the stamens of
Spiderwort, a high magnifying power is needed.
462. =Transference of Liquid from Cell to Cell=, and so from place to
place in the plant, the absorption of water by the rootlets, and the
exhalation of the greater part of it from the foliage,--these and
similar operations are governed by the physical laws which regulate the
diffusion of fluids, but are controlled by the action of living
protoplasm. Equally under vital control are the various chemical
transformations which attend assimilation and growth, and which involve
not only molecular movements but conveyance. Growth itself, which is the
formation and shaping of new parts, implies the direction of internal
activities to definite ends.
463. =Movements of Organs.= The living protoplasm, in all but the lowest
grade of plants, is enclosed and to common appearance isolated in
separate cells, the walls of which can only in their earliest state be
said to be alive. Still plants are able to cause the protoplasm of
adjacent cells to act in concert, and by their combined action to effect
movements in roots, stems, or leaves, some of them very slow and
gradual, some manifest and striking. Such movements are brought about
through individually minute changes in the form or tension in the
protoplasm of the innumerable cells which make up the structure of the
organ. Some of the slower movements are effected during growth, and may
be explained by inequality of growth on the two sides of the bending
organ. But the more rapid changes of position, and some of the slow
ones, cannot be so explained.
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