The Movements and Habits of Climbing PlantsDarwin, Charles
Science
The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants
Darwin, Charles
Climbing plants; Geotropism; Plants; Plants -- Irritability and movements
The leaves of different twining-plants are arranged on the stem (before
it has twined) alternately, or oppositely, or in a spire. In the latter
case the line of insertion of the leaves and the course of the
revolutions coincide. This fact has been well shown by Dutrochet, {19}
who found different individuals of _Solanum dulcamara_ twining in
opposite directions, and these had their leaves in each case spirally
arranged in the same direction. A dense whorl of many leaves would
apparently be incommodious for a twining plant, and some authors assert
that none have their leaves thus arranged; but a twining _Siphomeris_ has
whorls of three leaves.
If a stick which has arrested a revolving shoot, but has not as yet been
encircled, be suddenly taken away, the shoot generally springs forward,
showing that it was pressing with some force against the stick. After a
shoot has wound round a stick, if this be withdrawn, it retains for a
time its spiral form; it then straightens itself, and again commences to
revolve. The long, much-inclined shoot of the _Ceropegia_ previously
alluded to offered some curious peculiarities. The lower and older
internodes, which continued to revolve, were incapable, on repeated
trials, of twining round a thin stick; showing that, although the power
of movement was retained, this was not sufficient to enable the plant to
twine. I then moved the stick to a greater distance, so that it was
struck by a point 2½ inches from the extremity of the penultimate
internode; and it was then neatly encircled by this part of the
penultimate and by the ultimate internode. After leaving the spirally
wound shoot for eleven hours, I quietly withdrew the stick, and in the
course of the day the curled portion straightened itself and recommenced
revolving; but the lower and not curled portion of the penultimate
internode did not move, a sort of hinge separating the moving and the
motionless part of the same internode. After a few days, however, I
found that this lower part had likewise recovered its revolving power.
These several facts show that the power of movement is not immediately
lost in the arrested portion of a revolving shoot; and that after being
temporarily lost it can be recovered. When a shoot has remained for a
considerable time round a support, it permanently retains its spiral form
even when the support is removed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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