Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/577

.] rays of light were more heliotropically active, and the fact was confirmed by Payer in 1842; but Dutrochet in 1843 maintained, and incorrectly, that it is the brightness of the light, and not its refrangibility, which is the determining factor. Zantedeschi found in 1843 that red, orange, and yellow light are heliotropically inactive. Gardner on the contrary in 1844, and Guillemain in 1857, came with the help of the spectrum to the conclusion that all its rays are heliotropically active, and the question long remained hampered by these contradictory statements, till it was taken up again in 1864. This was a similar case to that of the question of the effect of variegated light on the elimination of oxygen and the formation of chlorophyll. Daubeny had given attention to the subject in 1836 and inclined to the view, that it was the brightness of the light rather than its refrangibility which was the important point; and Draper's observation, made with the spectrum in 1844, that the elimination of oxygen reaches its maximum in yellow light and decreases on each side of it, was generally understood as though it was a question only of the brightness of the light. It is only within recent times that this view has been abandoned, and in the same way all the investigations which have just been mentioned were not settled till after 1860, and were scarcely turned to any theoretical account.

The bright point in the history of phytodynamics at this time is Brücke's treatise in 1848 on the movements of the leaves in Mimosa, not only on account of the very important results which it records, but still more for the exactness of its method which has made it a model of research in these subjects. He first established the essential difference between the periodical nocturnal position of the leaves of Mimosa and the position which they assume when irritated, and showed that the former is connected with an increase in turgidity, the latter with relaxation; he showed further that if the upper half of the organ is removed, the periodical movements and the irritability both continue. Of great importance to to the theory was