Botany; Geotropism; Plants -- Irritability and movements
The circumnutating movements of the leaves of C. floribunda,
calliantha, and pubescens were observed, each during three or four
days; they were essentially alike, those of the last-named species
being the simplest. The petiole of C. floribunda was secured to a stick
at the base of the two terminal leaflets, and a filament was fixed
along the midrib of one of them. Its movements were traced from 1 P.M.
on August 13th to 8.30 A.M. 17th; but those during the last 2 h. are
alone given in Fig. 156. From 8 A.M. on each day (by which hour the
leaf had assumed its diurnal position) to 2 or 3 P.M., it either
zigzagged or circumnutated over nearly the same small space; at between
2 and 3 P.M. the great evening fall commenced. The lines representing
this fall and the early morning rise are oblique, owing to the peculiar
manner in which the leaflets sleep, as already described. After the
leaflet was asleep at 6 P.M., and whilst the glass filament hung
perpendicularly down, the movement of its apex was traced until 10.30
P.M.; and during this whole time it swayed from side to side,
completing more than one ellipse.
Fig 156. Cassia floribunda: circumnutation and nyctitropic movement of
a terminal leaflet (1 5/6 inch in length) traced from 8.30 A.M. to same
hour on following morning. Apex of leaflet 5½ inches from the vertical
glass. Main petiole 3 3/4 inches long. Temp. 16°–17½° C. Figure reduced
to one-half of the original scale.
Bauhinia (Tribe 15).—The nyctitropic movements of four species were
alike, and were highly peculiar. A plant raised from seed sent us from
South Brazil by Fritz Müller, was more especially observed. The leaves
are large and deeply notched at their ends. At night the two halves
rise up and close completely together, like the opposite leaflets of
many Leguminosae. With very young plants the petioles rise considerably
at the same time; one, which was inclined at noon 45° above the
horizon, at night stood at 75°; it thus rose 30°; another rose 34°.
Whilst the two halves of the leaf are closing, the midrib at first
sinks vertically downwards and afterwards bends backwards, so as to
pass close along one side of its own upwardly inclined petiole; the
midrib being thus directed towards the stem or axis of the plant. The
angle which the midrib formed with the horizon was measured in one case
at different hours: at noon it stood horizontally; late in the evening
it depended vertically; then rose to the opposite side, and at 10.15
P.M. stood at only 27° beneath the horizon, being directed towards the
stem. It had thus travelled through 153°.
Owing to this movement—to the leaves being folded—and to the petioles
rising, the whole plant is as much more compact at night than during
the day, as a fastigiate Lombardy poplar is compared with any other
species of poplar. It is remarkable that when our plants had grown a
little older, viz., to a height of 2 or 3 feet, the petioles did not
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