Botany; Geotropism; Plants -- Irritability and movements
When the tip of a radicle is lightly touched on one side with dry
nitrate of silver, the injury caused is
very slight, and the adjoining upper part bends away from the
cauterised point, with more certainty in most cases than from an object
attached on one side. Here it obviously is not the mere touch, but the
effect produced by the caustic, which induces the tip to transmit some
influence to the adjoining part, causing it to bend away. If one side
of the tip is badly injured or killed by the caustic, it ceases to
grow, whilst the opposite side continues growing; and the result is
that the tip itself bends towards the injured side and often becomes
completely hooked; and it is remarkable that in this case the adjoining
upper part does not bend. The stimulus is too powerful or the shock too
great for the proper influence to be transmitted from the tip. We have
strictly analogous cases with Drosera, Dionaea and Pinguicula, with
which plants a too powerful stimulus does not excite the tentacles to
become incurved, or the lobes to close, or the margin to be folded
inwards.
With respect to the degree of sensitiveness of the apex to contact
under favourable conditions, we have seen that with Vicia faba a little
square of writing-paper affixed with shellac sufficed to cause
movement; as did on one occasion a square of merely damped goldbeaters’
skin, but it acted very slowly. Short bits of moderately thick bristle
(of which measurements have been given) affixed with gum-water acted in
only three out of eleven trials, and beads of dried shellac under
1/200th of a grain in weight acted only twice in nine cases; so that
here we have nearly reached the minimum of necessary irritation. The
apex, therefore, is much less sensitive to pressure than the glands of
Drosera, for these are affected by far thinner objects than bits of
bristle, and by a very much less weight than 1/200th of a grain.
But the most interesting evidence of the delicate sensitiveness of the
tip of the radicle, was afforded by its power of discriminating between
equal-sized squares of card-like and very thin paper, when these were
attached on opposite sides, as was observed with the radicles of the
bean and oak.
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