Botany; Geotropism; Plants -- Irritability and movements
One of the most interesting facts with respect to the circumnutation of
leaves is the periodicity of their movements; for they often, or even
generally, rise a little in the evening and early part of the night,
and sink again on the following morning. Exactly the same phenomenon
was observed in the case of cotyledons. The leaves in 16 genera out of
the 33 which were observed behaved in this manner, as did probably 2
others. Nor must it be supposed that in the remaining 15 genera there
was no periodicity in their movements; for 6 of them were observed
during too short a period for any judgment to be formed on this head,
and 3 were so young that their epinastic growth, which serves to bring
them down into a horizontal position, overpowered every other kind of
movement. In only one genus, Cannabis, did the leaves sink in the
evening, and Kraus attributes this movement to the prepotency of their
epinastic growth. That the periodicity is determined by the daily
alternations of light and darkness there can hardly be a doubt, as will
hereafter be shown. Insectivorous plants are very little affected, as
far as their movements are concerned, by light; and hence probably it
is that their leaves, at least in the cases of Sarracenia, Drosera, and
Dionaea, do not move periodically. The upward movement in the evening
is at first slow, and with different plants begins at very different
hours;—with Glaucium as early as 11 A.M., commonly between 3 and 5
P.M., but sometimes as late as 7 P.M. It should be observed that none
of the leaves described in this chapter (except, as we believe, those
of Lupinus speciosus) possess a pulvinus; for the periodical movements
of leaves thus provided have generally been amplified into so-called
sleep-movements, with which we are not here concerned. The fact of
leaves and cotyledons frequently, or even generally, rising a little in
the evening and sinking in the morning, is of interest as giving the
foundation from which the specialised sleep-movements of many leaves
and cotyledons, not provided with a pulvinus, have been developed. the
above periodicity should be kept in mind, by any one considering the
problem of the horizontal position of leaves and cotyledons during the
day, whilst illuminated from above.
CHAPTER V.
MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: CLIMBING PLANTS; EPINASTIC AND HYPONASTIC
MOVEMENTS.
Circumnutation modified through innate causes or through the action of
external conditions—Innate causes—Climbing plants; similarity of their
movements with those of ordinary plants; increased amplitude;
occasional points of difference—Epinastic growth of young
leaves—Hyponastic growth of the hypocotyls and epicotyls of
seedlings—Hooked tips of climbing and other plants due to modified
circumnutation—Ampelopsis tricuspidata—Smithia Pfundii—Straightening of
the tip due to hyponasty—Epinastic growth and circumnutation of the
flower-peduncles of Trifolium repens and Oxalis carnosa.
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