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"The Power of Movement in Plants"

30 A.M. Aug. 26th to 7 A.M. on the
30th. The pot was then moved a very little to the right, and the tracing
(B) was continued without interruption from 7 A.M. Aug. 30th to after 6
P.M. Sept. 8th. It should be observed that on most of these days, only a
single dot was made each morning at the same hour. Whenever the flower was
observed carefully, as on Aug. 30th and Sept. 5th and 6th, it was found to
be circumnutating over a small space. At last, on Sept. 7th, it began to
bend downwards, and continued to do so until after 6 P.M. on the 8th, and
indeed until the morning of the 9th, when its movements could no longer be
traced on the vertical glass. It was carefully observed during the whole of
the 8th, and by
[page 279]
10.30 P.M. it had descended to a point lower down by two-thirds of the
length of the figure as here given; but from want of space the tracing has
been copied in B, only to a little after 6 P.M. On the morning of the 9th
the flower was withered, and the sub-peduncle now stood at an angle of 57o
beneath the horizon. If the flower had been fertilised it would have
withered much sooner, and have moved much more quickly.


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