Abstract
II. THE complete knowledge we have gained from our study of the anther filaments of Centaurea of the mechanism of the excitable plant cell, can he applied to every other known example of irrito-contractility in the organs of plants, and particularly to that most remarkable of all such structures, the leaf of Dionæa muscipula. Although I described the structure of the leaf just eight years ago in this room, I wil occupy a moment in repeating the description. The blade of the leaf is united on to the stalk by a little cylindrical joint. Here are two models, in one of which the leaf is represented in its closed state, in the other in which it is in its unexcited or open state. The leaf is everywhere contractile—that is, excitable by transmission, but not everywhere susceptible of direct excitation—or, in common language, sensitive. It is provided with special organs, of which we do not find the counterpart in any of the plants to which reference has been made, for the reception of external impressions—organs which, from their structure and position, can have no other function.
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The Excitability of Plants 1 . Nature 26, 483–486 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026483b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026483b0