Botany; Geotropism; Plants -- Irritability and movements
We will now describe in detail the experiments which were tried. These
were troublesome from our not being able to predict how much cold the
leaves of the several species could endure. Many plants had every leaf
killed, both those which were secured in a horizontal position and
those which were allowed to sleep—that is, to rise up or sink down
vertically. Others again had not a single leaf in the least injured,
and these had to be re-exposed either for a longer time or to a lower
temperature.
Oxalis acetosella.—A very large pot, thickly covered with between 300
and 400 leaves, had been kept all winter in the greenhouse. Seven
leaves were pinned horizontally open, and were exposed on March 16th
for 2 h. to a clear sky, the temperature on the surrounding grass being
–4° C. (24° to 25° F.). Next morning all seven leaves were found quite
killed, so were many of the free ones which had previously gone to
sleep, and about 100 of them, either dead or browned and injured were
picked off. Some leaves showed that they had been slightly injured by
not expanding during the whole of the next day, though they afterwards
recovered. As all the leaves which were pinned open were killed, and
only about a third or fourth of the others were either killed or
injured, we had some little evidence that those which were prevented
from assuming their vertically dependent position suffered most.
The following night (17th) was clear and almost equally cold (–3° to
–4° C. on the grass), and the pot was again exposed, but this time for
only 30 m. Eight leaves had been pinned out,
and in the morning two of them were dead, whilst not a single other
leaf on the many plants was even injured.
On the 23rd the pot was exposed for 1 h. 30 m., the temperature on the
grass being only –2° C., and not one leaf was injured: the pinned open
leaves, however, all stood from ½ to 3/4 of an inch above the cork.
On the 24th the pot was again placed on the ground and exposed to a
clear sky for between 35 m. and 40 m. By a mistake the thermometer was
left on an adjoining sun-dial 3 feet high, instead of being placed on
the grass; it recorded 25° to 26° F. (–3.3° to –3.8° C.), but when
looked at after 1 h. had fallen to 22° F. (–5.5° C.); so that the pot
was perhaps exposed to rather a lower temperature than on the two first
occasions. Eight leaves had been pinned out, some close to the cork and
some above it, and on the following morning five of them (i.e. 63 per
cent.) were found killed. By counting a portion of the leaves we
estimated that about 250 had been allowed to go to sleep, and of these
about 20 were killed (i.e. only 8 per cent.), and about 30 injured.
Considering these cases, there can be no doubt that the leaves of this
Oxalis, when allowed to assume their normal vertically dependent
position at night, suffer much less from frost than those (23 in
number) which had their upper surfaces exposed to the zenith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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