Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER I THE CIRCUMNUTATING MOVEMENTS OF SEEDLING PLANTS
- CHAPTER II GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE MOVEMENTS AND GROWTH OF SEEDLING PLANTS
- CHAPTER III SENSITIVENESS OF THE APEX OF THE RADICLE TO CONTACT AND TO OTHER IRRITANTS
- CHAPTER IV THE CIRCUMNUTATING MOVEMENTS OF THE SEVERAL PARTS OF MATURE PLANTS
- CHAPTER V MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: CLIMBING PLANTS; EPINASTIC AND HYPONASTIC MOVEMENTS
- CHAPTER VI MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: SLEEP OR NYCTITROPIC MOVEMENTS, THEIR USE: SLEEP OF COTYLEDONS
- CHAPTER VII MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: NYCTITROPIC OR SLEEP MOVEMENTS OF LEAVES
- CHAPTER VIII MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: MOVEMENTS EXCITED BY LIGHT
- CHAPTER IX SENSITIVENESS OF PLANTS TO LIGHT: ITS TRANSMITTED EFFECTS
- CHAPTER X MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: MOVEMENTS EXCITED BY GRAVITATION
- CHAPTER XI LOCALISED SENSITIVENESS TO GRAVITATION, AND ITS TRANSMITTED EFFECTS
- CHAPTER XII SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
- INDEX
CHAPTER III - SENSITIVENESS OF THE APEX OF THE RADICLE TO CONTACT AND TO OTHER IRRITANTS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER I THE CIRCUMNUTATING MOVEMENTS OF SEEDLING PLANTS
- CHAPTER II GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE MOVEMENTS AND GROWTH OF SEEDLING PLANTS
- CHAPTER III SENSITIVENESS OF THE APEX OF THE RADICLE TO CONTACT AND TO OTHER IRRITANTS
- CHAPTER IV THE CIRCUMNUTATING MOVEMENTS OF THE SEVERAL PARTS OF MATURE PLANTS
- CHAPTER V MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: CLIMBING PLANTS; EPINASTIC AND HYPONASTIC MOVEMENTS
- CHAPTER VI MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: SLEEP OR NYCTITROPIC MOVEMENTS, THEIR USE: SLEEP OF COTYLEDONS
- CHAPTER VII MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: NYCTITROPIC OR SLEEP MOVEMENTS OF LEAVES
- CHAPTER VIII MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: MOVEMENTS EXCITED BY LIGHT
- CHAPTER IX SENSITIVENESS OF PLANTS TO LIGHT: ITS TRANSMITTED EFFECTS
- CHAPTER X MODIFIED CIRCUMNUTATION: MOVEMENTS EXCITED BY GRAVITATION
- CHAPTER XI LOCALISED SENSITIVENESS TO GRAVITATION, AND ITS TRANSMITTED EFFECTS
- CHAPTER XII SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
- INDEX
Summary
In order to see how the radicles of seedlings would pass over stones, roots, and other obstacles, which they must incessantly encounter in the soil, germinating beans (Vicia faba) were so placed that the tips of the radicles came into contact, almost rectangularly or at a high angle, with underlying plates of glass. In other cases the beans were turned about whilst their radicles were growing, so that they descended nearly vertically on their own smooth, almost flat, broad upper surfaces. The delicate root-cap, when it first touched any directly opposing surface, was a little flattened transversely; the flattening soon became oblique, and in a few hours quite disappeared, the apex now pointing at right angles, or at nearly right angles, to its former course. The radicle then seemed to glide in its new direction over the surface which had opposed it, pressing on it with very little force. How far such abrupt changes in its former course are aided by the circumnutation of the tip must be left doubtful. Thin slips of wood were cemented on more or less steeply inclined glass-plates, at right angles to the radicles which were gliding down them. Straight lines had been painted along the growing terminal part of some of these radicles, before they met the opposing slip of wood; and the lines became sensibly curved in 2 h. after the apex had come into contact with the slips.
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- The Power of Movement in Plants , pp. 129 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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