Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/571

] of tendrils and climbing-plants was one of von Mohl's best works, and altogether the best that appeared on the subject before Darwin wrote upon it in 1865; at the same time it must be said that von Mohl did not explain the exact mechanical processes in the tissues, for he assumed a sensitiveness in both cases which causes the winding round the support, and thought that this sensitiveness must be conceived of 'dynamically' and not 'mechanically.' Nevertheless von Mohl conducted his investigation up to this point according to strict rules of inductive science, and studied the facts which were capable of being established by observation and experiment with an exactness such as had not yet been applied to any case of movement in plants. It was a genuine production of its author, strictly inductive up to the point at which deduction became necessary. Von Mohl pointed out in it essential differences in the behaviour of tendrils and climbing plants, and the corresponding distinction between the organs which have to be considered in each case, and he made the important discovery that contact with the support acts as a stimulus on the tendril, though he was wrong in supposing that the climbing stem also is similarly affected. He at once assented to Dutrochet's new view, that it is not the vascular bundles but the layers of parenchyma which produce the movements. He distinctly rejected the notion constantly repeated, though with some hesitation, since the time of Cesalpino, that tendrils and climbing-plants 'seem to seek for' their supports, as also the idea which many had adopted without reflection from Grew, that the varying direction of a climbing-stem is due to the varying influence of the course of the sun and moon, and showed that the movements of nutation in the stem are sufficient to explain the apparent seeking for the support; it is true that he did not fully explain the corresponding phenomena in tendrils, but he saw enough to set aside the old ideas. We must not here go further into his many, and for the most part excellent, observations; some of course had afterwards to be corrected, but the important