The Power of Movement in Plants
Encyclopedia
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
on phototropism
Phototropism
Phototropism is directional growth in which the direction of growth is determined by the direction of the light source. In other words, it is the growth and response to a light stimulus. Phototropism is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi...
and other types of movement in plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s. This book continues his work in producing evidence for his theory of natural selection. As it was one of his last books, followed only by the publication of The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits is an 1881 book by Charles Darwin on earthworms. It was his last scientific book, and was published shortly before his death...
, he was assisted by his son Francis
Francis Darwin
Sir Francis "Frank" Darwin, FRS , a son of the British naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin, followed his father into botany.-Biography:Francis Darwin was born in Down House, Downe, Kent in 1848...
in conducting the necessary experiments and preparing the manuscript. The Power of Movement in Plants was published November 6, 1880, and 1500 copies were quickly sold by publisher John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...
.
This book stands at the culmination of a long line of study in plants and is immediately preceded by ‘The different forms of flowers on Plants of the same species’ (1877). (See Bibliography for additional publications on plants.) These studies on plants were first evidenced in ‘On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects’ (1862), the publication that immediately followed On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection.
He co-authored this study with his son Francis Darwin (who specialised in botany) and his devotee, George Romanes, who assisted in editing the work. The work was begun in earnest late in 1877, after his work on climbing plants
The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants
The Movements and Habits of Climbing PlantsOn the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants is a book by Charles Darwin first printed in book form in 1875 published by John Murray...
(1865) and insectivorous plants
Insectivorous Plants (book)
Insectivorous Plants is a book by British naturalist and evolutionary theory pioneer Charles Darwin, first published on 2 July 1875 in London....
(1875) stimulated his interest in the subject. At times, Darwin despaired of ever finishing the work, as the book outgrew his original expectations:
- "I have written a rather big book—more is the pity—on the movements of plants, and I am now just beginning to go over the MS. for the second time, which is a horrid bore."
As the book neared completion, he summarized its underlying viewpoint:
- "My MS. relates to the movements of plants, and I think that I have succeeded in showing that all the more important great classes of movements are due to the modification of a kind of movement common to all parts of all plants from their earliest youth."
The work concerns itself with how plants respond to external stimuli and examines these processes in individual plants in order to gain understanding of some general principles governing their growth and life. This continues Darwin’s work of elucidating how natural selection works and specifically how plants have adapted to differing environments whilst at the same time answering some objections of his day that evolution could not account for changes in behavioural responses. In his conclusions, Darwin presents the key features of plants from an evolutionary perspective indicating that gradual modification of these processes in response to natural selective forces like light and water could enable extensive ability to adapt.
The process that creates the circular or elliptical movement of the stem and tips of plants (circumnutation) was identified as a significant one in enabling plants to evolve and adapt to almost any environment on the planet. Darwin also drew attention to the similarities between animals and plants, e.g., sensitivity to touch (thigmotropism
Thigmotropism
Thigmotropism is a movement in which an organism moves or grows in response to touch or contact stimuli. The prefix thigmo- θιγμος comes from the Greek for "touch". Usually thigmotropism occurs when plants grow around a surface, such as a wall, pot, or trellis. Climbing plants, such as vines,...
), light sensitivity (phototropism
Phototropism
Phototropism is directional growth in which the direction of growth is determined by the direction of the light source. In other words, it is the growth and response to a light stimulus. Phototropism is most often observed in plants, but can also occur in other organisms such as fungi...
), and gravity (geotropism). Darwin used various methods of enquiry: usually setting up rigorous controlled experiments which are clearly explained in the text, reporting the results and then drawing general conclusions. Studies of nyctinasty
Nyctinasty
Nyctinasty is the circadian rhythmic nastic movement of higher plants in response to the onset of darkness. Examples are the closing of the petals of a flower at dusk and the sleep movements of the leaves of many legumes....
were particularly burdensome, to Darwin's rest as well as to the plants:
- "I think we have proved that the sleep of plants is to lessen the injury to the leaves from radiation. This has interested me much, and has cost us great labor, as it has been a problem since the time of Linnaeus. But we have killed or badly injured a multitude of plants."
Content
The book is divided into the following chapters, each of which describes types of movements based on Darwin's specific experiments and their results.- Chapter 1: The Circumnutating Movements of Seedling Plants
- Chapter 2: General Considerations of the Movements and Growth of Seedling Plants
- Chapter 3: Sensitiveness of the Apex of the Radicle to Contact and to other Irritants
- Chapter 4: The Circumnutating Movements of the several parts of Mature Plants
- Chapter 5: Modified Circumnutation: Climbing Plants; Epinastic and Hyponastic Movements
- Chapter 6: Modified Circumnutation: Sleep or Nyctitropic Movements, Their Use: Sleep of Cotyledons
- Chapter 7: Modified Circumnutation: Nyctitropic or Sleep Movements of Leaves
- Chapter 8: Modified Circumnutation: Movements excited by Light
- Chapter 9: Sensitiveness of Plants to Light: its transmitted effects
- Chapter 10: Modified Circumnutation: Movements excited by Gravitation
- Chapter 11: Localised Sensitiveness to Gravitation, and its Transmitted Effects
- Chapter 12: Summary and Concluding Remarks
Reception
According to Darwin's son Francis, the book was "widely reviewed and excited much interest among the general public." A lead article in the London TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
on November 20, 1880, generated notes from acquaintances and friends. The book received critical review by botanist Dr. Julius Wiesner of the University of Vienna.