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
_Vitis vinifera_.—The tendril is thick and of great length; one from a
vine growing out of doors and not vigorously, was 16 inches long. It
consists of a peduncle (A), bearing two branches which diverge equally
from it. One of the branches (B) has a scale at its base; it is always,
as far as I have seen, longer than the other and often bifurcates. The
branches when rubbed become curved, and subsequently straighten
themselves. After a tendril has clasped any object with its extremity,
it contracts spirally; but this does not occur (Palm, p. 56) when no
object has been seized. The tendrils move spontaneously from side to
side; and on a very hot day, one made two elliptical revolutions, at an
average rate of 2 hrs. 15 m. During these movements a coloured line,
painted along the convex surface, appeared after a time on one side, then
on the concave side, then on the opposite side, and lastly again on the
convex side. The two branches of the same tendril have independent
movements. After a tendril has spontaneously revolved for a time, it
bends from the light towards the dark: I do not state this on my own
authority, but on that of Mohl and Dutrochet. Mohl (p. 77) says that in
a vine planted against a wall the tendrils point towards it, and in a
vineyard generally more or less to the north.
The young internodes revolve spontaneously; but the movement is unusually
slight. A shoot faced a window, and I traced its course on the glass
during two perfectly calm and hot days. On one of these days it
described, in the course of ten hours, a spire, representing two and a
half ellipses. I also placed a bell-glass over a young Muscat grape in
the hot-house, and it made each day three or four very small oval
revolutions; the shoot moving less than half an inch from side to side.
Had it not made at least three revolutions whilst the sky was uniformly
overcast, I should have attributed this slight degree of movement to the
varying action of the light. The extremity of the stem is more or less
bent downwards, but it never reverses its curvature, as so generally
occurs with twining plants.
[Picture: Fig. 10. Flower-stalk of the Vine. A. Common Peduncle. B.
Flower-tendril. C. Sub-Peduncle, bearing the flower-buds. D. Petiole
of the opposite leaf]
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