Abstract
THE paper deals with the modern theory2 of the mechanism by which plants are enabled to regulate their line of growth by means of the force of gravity. When an upright flower-stalk is forcibly subjected to a change of position, for instance by laying the flowerpot on its side, it responds by geotropic curvature, and finally regains the vertical., The statolith theory is not concerned with the mechanism of curvature, but merely with the question how horizontality can originate a stimulus, in other words, how the, plant perceives that it is no longer vertiqal. It is known that in some animals, for example the Crustacean Palaemon, the faculty of spacial orientation depends on statoliths (otoliths) which serve as guides by pressure on the internal surface of the btocyst. This theory has now been, applied to plants; the function of statoliths is believed to be performed (in Phanerogams, at least) by starch grains which are free and movable, and thus fall to the lower end of the cell. So long as the plant is vertical, the starch grains rest in a layer on the basal walls of the cells. If the plant is placed obliquely or horizontally, the falling starch grains rapidly take up a different position, and, by pressing on a new region of the cell walls, can be conceived to originate a stimulus.
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DARWIN, F. The Statolith Theory of Geotropism 1 . Nature 67, 571–572 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067571a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067571a0
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