Page:Life Movements in Plants.djvu/33

Rh in detail the effect of a given stimulus under definite changes of the environmental condition. With regard to a given stimulus we have to determine the effects of intensity, of duration, and of the point of application. The investigation has to include the effects exhibited not merely by the pulvinated but also by growing organs. As a result of such a comprehensive study, it may perhaps be possible to discover some fundamental reaction operative in bringing about the responsive movement in all plant organs.

I shall, in the course of the following series of Papers, describe the different apparatus by which the movement of pulvinated organ and its time-relations are automatically recorded. In a growing organ the induced movement under stimulus is brought about by the change in its rate of growth. That the change is solely due to the particular stimulus can only be assured by strict maintenance of constancy of external conditions, during the period of experiment; this constancy can, in practice, be secured only for a short time. The necessity for shortening the period of experiment also arises from a different consideration: for numerous and varied are the stimulating and mechanical interactions between neighbouring organs. These effects, however, come into play after a certain lapse of time. They may be eliminated by reduction of the period of experiment.

In order to shorten the period of experiment for the study of growth movements, the rate of growth has to be very highly magnified, so as to determine the absolute rate and its variations in the course of a minute or so. I shall in a subsequent Paper give full account of an apparatus I have been able to devise, by which it is possible to record automatically the rate of growth magnified many thousand times. 3