The Elements of Botany Part 23

460. =Locomotion.= Moreover, many microscopic plants living in water are seen to move freely, if not briskly, under the microscope; and so likewise do more conspicuous aquatic plants in their embryo-like or seedling state. Even at maturity, species of Oscillaria (such as in Fig.

488, minute worm-shaped plants of fresh waters, taking this name from their oscillating motions) freely execute three different kinds of movement, the very delicate investing coat of cellulose not impeding the action of the living protoplasm within. Even when this coat is firmer and hardened with a siliceous deposit, such crescent-shaped or boat-shaped one-celled plants as _Closterium_ or _Naricula_ are able in some way to move along from place to place in the water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 489. A few cells of a leaf of Naias flexilis, highly magnified: the arrows indicate the courses of the circulating currents.]

461. =Movements in Cells=, =or Cell-circulation=, sometimes called _Cyclosis_, has been detected in so many plants, especially in comparatively transparent aquatic plants and in hairs on the surface of land plants (where it is easiest to observe), that it may be inferred to take place in all cells during the most active part of their life. This motion is commonly a streaming movement of threads of protoplasm, carrying along solid granules by which the action may be observed and the rate measured, or in some cases it is a rotation of the whole protoplasmic contents of the cell. A comparatively low magnifying power will show it in the cells of Nitella and Chara (which are cryptogamous plants); and under a moderate power it is well seen in the Tape Gra.s.s of fresh water, Vallisneria, and in Naias flexilis (Fig. 489). Minute particles and larger greenish globules are seen to be carried along, as if in a current, around the cell, pa.s.sing up one side, across the end, down the other and across the bottom, completing the circuit sometimes within a minute or less when well warmed. To see it well in the cell, which like a string of beads form the hairs on the stamens of Spiderwort, a high magnifying power is needed.

462. =Transference of Liquid from Cell to Cell=, and so from place to place in the plant, the absorption of water by the rootlets, and the exhalation of the greater part of it from the foliage,--these and similar operations are governed by the physical laws which regulate the diffusion of fluids, but are controlled by the action of living protoplasm. Equally under vital control are the various chemical transformations which attend a.s.similation and growth, and which involve not only molecular movements but conveyance. Growth itself, which is the formation and shaping of new parts, implies the direction of internal activities to definite ends.

463. =Movements of Organs.= The living protoplasm, in all but the lowest grade of plants, is enclosed and to common appearance isolated in separate cells, the walls of which can only in their earliest state be said to be alive. Still plants are able to cause the protoplasm of adjacent cells to act in concert, and by their combined action to effect movements in roots, stems, or leaves, some of them very slow and gradual, some manifest and striking. Such movements are brought about through individually minute changes in the form or tension in the protoplasm of the innumerable cells which make up the structure of the organ. Some of the slower movements are effected during growth, and may be explained by inequality of growth on the two sides of the bending organ. But the more rapid changes of position, and some of the slow ones, cannot be so explained.

464. =Root-movements.= In its growth a root turns or bends away from the light and toward the centre of the earth, so that in lengthening it buries itself in the soil where it is to live and act. Every one must have observed this in the germination of seeds. Careful observations have shown that the tip of a growing root also makes little sweeps or short movements from side to side. By this means it more readily insinuates itself into yielding portions of the soil. The root-tips will also turn toward moisture, and so secure the most favorable positions in the soil.

465. =Stem-movements.= The root end of the caulicle or first joint of stem (that below the cotyledons) acts like the root, in turning downward in germination (making a complete bend to do so if it happens to point upward as the seed lies in the ground), while the other end turns or points skyward. These opposite positions are taken in complete darkness as readily as in the light, in dryness as much as in moisture: therefore, so far as these movements are physical, the two portions of the same internode appear to be oppositely affected by gravitation or other influences.

466. Rising into the air, the stem and green shoots generally, while young and pliable, bend or direct themselves toward the light, or toward the stronger light when unequally illuminated; while roots turn toward the darkness.

467. Many growing stems have also a movement of _Nutation_, that is, of nodding successively in different directions. This is brought about by a temporary increase of turgidity of the cells along one side, thus bowing the stem over to the opposite side; and this line of turgescence travels round the shoot continually, from right to left or from left to right according to the species: thus the shoot bends to all points of the compa.s.s in succession. Commonly this nutation is slight or hardly observable. It is most marked in

468. =Twining Stems= (Fig. 90). The growing upper end of such stems, as is familiar in the Hop, Pole Beans, and Morning-Glory, turns over in an inclined or horizontal direction, thus stretching out to reach a neighboring support, and by the continual change in the direction of the nodding, sweeps the whole circle, the sweeps being the longer as the stem lengthens. When it strikes against a support, such as a stem or branch of a neighboring plant, the motion is arrested at the contact, but continues at the growing apex beyond, and this apex is thus made to wind spirally around the supporting body.

469. =Leaf-movements= are all but universal. The presentation by most leaves of their upper surface to the light, from whatever direction that may come, is an instance; for when turned upside down they twist or bend round on the stalk to recover this normal position. Leaves, and the leaflets of compound leaves, change this position at nightfall, or when the light is withdrawn; they then take what is called their sleeping posture, resuming the diurnal position when daylight returns. This is very striking in Locust-trees, in the Sensitive Plant (Fig. 490), and in Woodsorrel. Young seedlings droop or close their leaves at night in plants which are not thus affected in the adult foliage. All this is thought to be a protection against the cold by nocturnal radiation.

470. Various plants climb by a coiling movement of their leaves or their leaf-stalks. Familiar examples are seen in Clematis, Maurandia, Tropaeolum, and in a Solanum which is much cultivated in greenhouses (Fig. 172). In the latter, and in other woody plants which climb in this way, the petioles thicken and harden after they have grasped their support, thus securing a very firm hold.

471. =Tendril movements.= Tendrils are either leaves or stems (98, 168), specially developed for climbing purposes. Cobaea is a good example of partial transformation; some of the leaflets are normal, some of the same leaf are little tendrils, and some intermediate in character. The Pa.s.sion-flowers give good examples of simple stem-tendrils (Fig. 92); Grape-Vines, of branched ones. Most tendrils make revolving sweeps, like those of twining stems. Those of some Pa.s.sion-flowers, in sultry weather, are apt to move fast enough for the movement actually to be seen for a part of the circuit, as plainly as that of the second-hand of a watch. Two herbaceous species, Pa.s.siflora gracilis and P. sicyoides (the first an annual, the second a strong-rooted perennial of the easiest cultivation), are admirable for ill.u.s.tration both of revolving movements and of sensitive coiling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 490. Piece of stem of Sensitive Plant (Mimosa pudica), with two leaves, the lower open, the upper in the closed state.]

472. =Movements under Irritation.= The most familiar case is that of the Sensitive Plant (Fig. 490). The leaves suddenly take their nocturnal position when roughly touched or when shocked by a jar. The leaflets close in pairs, the four outspread partial petioles come closer together, and the common petiole is depressed. The seat of the movements is at the base of the leaf-stalk and stalklets. Schrankia, a near relative of the Sensitive Plant, acts in the same way, but is slower.

These are not anomalous actions, but only extreme manifestations of a faculty more or less common in foliage. In Locust and Honey-Locusts for example, repeated jars will slowly produce similar effects.

473. Leaf-stalks and tendrils are adapted to their uses in climbing by a similar sensitiveness. The coiling of the leaf-stalk is in response to a kind of irritation produced by contact with the supporting body. This may be shown by gentle rubbing or prolonged pressure upon the upper face of the leaf-stalk, which is soon followed by a curvature. Tendrils are still more sensitive to contact or light friction. This causes the free end of the tendril to coil round the support, and the sensitiveness, propagated downward along the tendril, causes that side of it to become less turgescent or the opposite side more so, thus throwing the tendril into coils. This shortening draws the plant up to the support. Tendrils which have not laid hold will at length commonly coil spontaneously, in a simple coil, from the free apex downward. In Sicyos, Echinocystis, and the above mentioned Pa.s.sion-flowers (471), the tendril is so sensitive, under a high summer temperature, that it will curve and coil promptly after one or two light strokes by the hand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 491. Portion of stem and leaves of Telegraph-plant (Desmodium gyrans), almost of natural size.]

474. Among spontaneous movements the most singular are those of Desmodium gyrans of India, sometimes called Telegraph-plant, which is cultivated on account of this action. Of its three leaflets, the larger (terminal) one moves only by drooping at nightfall and rising with the dawn. But its two small lateral leaflets, when in a congenial high temperature, by day and by night move upward and downward in a succession of jerks, stopping occasionally, as if to recover from exhaustion. In most plant-movements some obviously useful purpose is subserved: this of Desmodium gyrans is a riddle.

475. =Movements in Flowers= are very various. The most remarkable are in some way connected with fertilization (Sect. XIII.). Some occur under irritation: the stamens of Barberry start forward when touched at the base inside: those of many polyandrous flowers (of Sparmannia very strikingly) spread outwardly when lightly brushed: the two lips or lobes of the stigma in Mimulus close after a touch. Some are automatic and are connected with dichogamy (339): the style of Sabbatia and of large-flowered species of Epilobium bends over strongly to one side or turns downward when the blossom opens, but slowly erects itself a day or two later.

476. =Extraordinary Movements connected with Capture of Insects.= The most striking cases are those of Drosera and Dionaea; for an account of which see "How Plants Behave," and Goodale's "Physiological Botany."

477. The upper face of the leaves of the common species of Drosera, or Sundew, is beset with stout bristles, having a glandular tip. This tip secretes a drop of a clear but very viscid liquid, which glistens like a dew-drop in the sun; whence the popular name. When a fly or other small insect, attracted by the liquid, alights upon the leaf, the viscid drops are so tenacious that they hold it fast. In struggling it only becomes more completely entangled. Now the neighboring bristles, which have not been touched, slowly bend inward from all sides toward the captured insect, and bring their sticky apex against its body, thus increasing the number of bonds. Moreover, the blade of the leaf commonly aids in the capture by becoming concave, its sides or edges turning inward, which brings still more of the gland-tipped bristles into contact with the captive's body. The insect perishes; the clear liquid disappears, apparently by absorption into the tissue of the leaf. It is thought that the absorbed secretion takes with it some of the juices of the insect or the products of its decomposition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 492. Plant of Dionaea muscipula, or Venus's Fly-trap, reduced in size.]

478. Dionaea muscipula, the most remarkable vegetable fly-trap (Fig. 176, 492), is related to the Sundews, and has a more special and active apparatus for fly-catching, formed of the summit of the leaf. The two halves of this rounded body move as if they were hinged upon the midrib; their edges are fringed with spiny but not glandular bristles, which interlock when the organ closes. Upon the face are two or three short and delicate bristles, which are sensitive. They do not themselves move when touched, but they propagate the sensitiveness to the organ itself, causing it to close with a quick movement. In a fresh and vigorous leaf, under a high summer temperature, and when the trap lies widely open, a touch of any one of the minute bristles on the face, by the finger or any extraneous body, springs the trap (so to say), and it closes suddenly; but after an hour or so it opens again. When a fly or other small insect alights on the trap, it closes in the same manner, and so quickly that the intercrossing marginal bristles obstruct the egress of the insect, unless it be a small one and not worth taking.

Afterwards and more slowly it completely closes, and presses down upon the prey; then some hidden glands pour out a glairy liquid, which dissolves out the juices of the insect's body; next all is re-absorbed into the plant, and the trap opens to repeat the operation. But the same leaf perhaps never captures more than two or three insects. It ages instead, becomes more rigid and motionless, or decays away.

479. That some few plants should thus take animal food will appear less surprising when it is considered that hosts of plants of the lower grade, known as Fungi, moulds, rusts, ferments, Bacteria, etc., live upon animal or other organized matter, either decaying or living. That plants should execute movements in order to accomplish the ends of their existence is less surprising now when it is known that the living substance of plants and animals is essentially the same; that the beings of both kingdoms partake of a common life, to which, as they rise in the scale, other and higher endowments are successively superadded.

480. =Work uses up material and energy= in plants as well as in animals.

The latter live and work by the consumption and decomposition of that which plants have a.s.similated into organizable matter through an energy derived from the sun, and which is, so to say, stored up in the a.s.similated products. In every internal action, as well as in every movement and exertion, some portion of this a.s.similated matter is transformed and of its stored energy expended. The steam-engine is an organism for converting the sun's radiant energy, stored up by plants in the fuel, into mechanical work. An animal is an engine fed by vegetable fuel in the same or other forms, from the same source, by the decomposition of which it also does mechanical work. The plant is the producer of food and acc.u.mulator of solar energy or force. But the plant, like the animal, is a consumer whenever and by so much as it does any work except its great work of a.s.similation. Every internal change and movement, every transformation, such as that of starch into sugar and of sugar into cell-walls, as well as every movement of parts which becomes externally visible, is done at the expense of a certain amount of its a.s.similated matter and of its stored energy; that is, by the decomposition or combustion of sugar or some such product into carbonic acid and water, which is given back to the air, just as in the animal it is given back to the air in respiration. So the respiration of plants is as real and as essential as that of animals. But what plants consume or decompose in their life and action is of insignificant amount in comparison with what they compose.

Section XVII. CRYPTOGAMOUS OR FLOWERLESS PLANTS.

481. Even the beginner in botany should have some general idea of what cryptogamous plants are, and what are the obvious distinctions of the princ.i.p.al families. Although the lower grades are difficult, and need special books and good microscopes for their study, the higher orders, such as Ferns, may be determined almost as readily as phanerogamous plants.

482. Linnaeus gave to this lower grade of plants the name of _Cryptogamia_, thereby indicating that their organs answering to stamens and pistils, if they had any, were recondite and unknown. There is no valid reason why this long-familiar name should not be kept up, along with the counterpart one of _Phanerogamia_ (6), although organs a.n.a.logous to stamens and pistil, or rather to pollen and ovule, have been discovered in all the higher and most of the lower grades of this series of plants. So also the English synonymous name of _Flowerless Plants_ is both good and convenient: for they have not flowers in the proper sense. The essentials of flowers are stamens and pistils, giving rise to seeds, and the essential of a seed is an embryo (8).

Cryptogamous or Flowerless plants are propagated by SPORES; and a spore is not an embryo-plantlet, but mostly a single plant-cell (399).

483. =Vascular Cryptogams=, which compose the higher orders of this series of plants, have stems and (usually) leaves, constructed upon the general plan of ordinary plants; that is, they have wood (wood-cells and vessels, 408) in the stem and leaves, in the latter as a frame work of veins. But the lower grades, having only the more elementary cellular structure, are called _Cellular Cryptogams_. Far the larger number of the former are Ferns: wherefore that cla.s.s has been called

484. =Pteridophyta, Pteridophytes= in English form, meaning _Fern-plants_,--that is, Ferns and their relatives. They are mainly Horsetails, Ferns, Club-Mosses, and various aquatics which have been called _Hydropterides_, i. e. Water-Ferns.

485. =Horsetails=, _Equisetaceae_, is the name of a family which consists only (among now-living plants) of _Equisetum_, the botanical name of Horsetail and Scouring Rush. They have hollow stems, with part.i.tions at the nodes; the leaves consist only of a whorl of scales at each node, these coalescent into a sheath: from the axils of these leaf-scales, in many species, branches grow out, which are similar to the stem but on a much smaller scale, close-jointed, and with the tips of the leaves more apparent. At the apex of the stem appears the _fructification_, as it is called for lack of a better term, in the form of a short spike or head.

This consists of a good number of stalked shields, bearing on their inner or under face several wedge-shaped spore-cases. The spore-cases when they ripen open down the inner side and discharge a great number of green spores of a size large enough to be well seen by a hand-gla.s.s.

The spores are aided in their discharge and dissemination by four club-shaped threads attached to one part of them. These are hygrometric: when moist they are rolled up over the spore; when dry they straighten, and exhibit lively movements, closing over the spore when breathed upon, and unrolling promptly a moment after as they dry. (See Fig. 493-498.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 493. Upper part of a stem of a Horsetail, Equisetum sylvatic.u.m. 494. Part of the head or spike of spore-cases, with some of the latter taken off. 495. View (more enlarged) of under side of the shield-shaped body, bearing a circle of spore-cases. 496. One of the latter detached and more magnified. 497. A spore with the attached arms moistened. 498. Same when dry, the arms extended.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 499. A Tree-Fern, d.i.c.ksonia arborescens, with a young one near its base. In front a common herbaceous Fern (Polypodium vulgare) with its creeping stem or rootstock.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 500. A section of the trunk of a Tree-Fern.]

486. =Ferns, or Filices=, a most attractive family of plants, are very numerous and varied. In warm and equable climates some rise into forest-trees, with habit of Palms; but most of them are perennial herbs.

The wood of a Fern-trunk is very different, however, from that of a palm, or of any exogenous stem either. A section is represented in Fig.

500. The curved plates of wood each terminate upward in a leaf-stalk.

The subterranean trunk or stem of any strong-growing herbaceous Fern shows a similar structure. Most Ferns are circinate in the bud; that is, are rolled up in the manner shown in Fig. 197. Uncoiling as they grow, they have some likeness to a crosier.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 501. The Walking-Fern, Camptosorus, reduced in size, showing its fruit-dots on the veins approximated in pairs. 502. A small piece (pinnule) of a Shield-Fern: a row of fruit-dots on each side of the midrib, each covered by its kidney-shaped indusium. 503. A spore-case from the latter, just bursting by the partial straightening of the incomplete ring; well magnified. 504. Three of the spores of 509, more magnified. 505. Schizaea pusilla, a very small and simple-leaved Fern, drawn nearly of natural size. 506. One of the lobes of its fruit-bearing portion, magnified, bearing two rows of spore-cases. 507.

Spore-case of the latter, detached, opening lengthwise. 508.

Adder-tongue, Ophioglossum; spore-cases in a kind of spike: _a_, a portion of the fruiting part, about natural size; showing two rows of the firm spore-cases, which open transversely into two valves.]

487. The fructification of Ferns is borne on the back or under side of the leaves. The early botanists thought this such a peculiarity that they always called a Fern-leaf a FROND, and its petiole a STIPE. Usage continues these terms, although they are superfluous. The fruit of Ferns consists of SPORE-CASES, technically SPORANGIA, which grow out of the veins of the leaf. Sometimes these are distributed over the whole lower surface of the leaf or frond, or over the whole surface when there are no proper leaf-blades to the frond, but all is reduced to stalks.

Commonly the spore-cases occupy only detached spots or lines, each of which is called a SORUS, or in English merely a Fruit-dot. In many Ferns these fruit-dots are naked; in others they are produced under a scale-like bit of membrane, called an INDUSIUM. In Maidenhair-Ferns a little lobe of the leaf is folded back over each fruit-dot, to serve as its shield or indusium. In the true Brake or Bracken (Pteris) the whole edge of the fruit-bearing part of the leaf is folded back over it like a hem.

488. The form and structure of the spore-cases can be made out with a common hand magnifying gla.s.s. The commonest kind (shown in Fig. 503) has a stalk formed of a row of jointed cells, and is itself composed of a layer of thin-walled cells, but is incompletely surrounded by a border of thicker-walled cells, forming the RING. This extends from the stalk up one side of the spore-case, round its summit, descends on the other side, but there gradually vanishes. In ripening and drying the shrinking of the cells of the ring on the outer side causes it to straighten; in doing so it tears the spore-case open on the weaker side and discharges the minute spores that fill it, commonly with a jerk which scatters them to the wind. Another kind of spore-case (Fig. 507) is stalkless, and has its ring-cells forming a kind of cap at the top: at maturity it splits from top to bottom by a regular dehiscence. A third kind is of firm texture and opens across into two valves, like a clam-sh.e.l.l (Fig. 508a): this kind makes an approach to the next family.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 509. A young prothallus of a Maiden-hair, moderately enlarged, and an older one with the first fern-leaf developed from near the notch. 510. Middle portion of the young one, much magnified, showing below, partly among the rootlets, the _antheridia_ or fertilizing organs, and above, near the notch, three _pistillidia_ to be fertilized.]

489. The spores germinate on moistened ground. In a conservatory they may be found germinating on a damp wall or on the edges of a well-watered flower-pot. Instead of directly forming a fern-plantlet, the spore grows first into a body which closely resembles a small Liverwort. This is named a PROTHALLUS (Fig. 509): from some point of this a bud appears to originate, which produces the first fern-leaf, soon followed by a second and third, and so the stem and leaves of the plant are set up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 511. Lycopodium Carolinianum, of nearly natural size. 512. Inside view of one of the bracts and spore-case, magnified.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 513. Open 4-valved spore-case of a Selaginella, and its four large spores (macrospores), magnified. 514. Macrospores of another Selaginella. 515. Same separated.]