Electrical Polarity and Auxins 



A. R. SCHRANK 



GROWTH curvature responses of plants are dependent on an integrat- 

 ing mechanism which permits the individual cells of a system to 

 operate collectively as a coordinated unit. In the absence of a highly 

 specialized nervous system in plants some other more primitive device 

 must be functioning. Evidence has been presented to show that living 

 organisms are surrounded and permeated by electrical fields which are 

 generated by the polar components of the system (17). These fields 

 have been looked upon as an electrical correlation mechanism, which 

 operates by transferring electrical energy within the field. In the simplest 

 aspect the flow of current could be accomplished by the movement of 

 ions or other electrically charged particles. This, however, should not 

 be taken to imply that the transfer of electrically charged particles is 

 necessarily accomplished by electrophoresis. 



A prodigious mass of experimental data (3,37), which has been 

 accumulated over a period of years, serves as the basis for the far- 

 reaching Cholodny-Went (9) theory of plant growth responses. More 

 recent evidence also continues to support the postulation that growth 

 curvatures are due to an unequal distribution of auxin in the opposite 

 sides of the curving organ (21,22,38). Although the detailed explanation 

 of precisely how the uneven distribution is accomplished is not always 

 apparent, it is generally accepted that the lateral transport of auxin is 

 a rather significant intermediate link in many of the curvature responses. 

 It is obvious that auxins cannot be transported of themselves, and that 

 some additional mechanism in the form of an oriented force is essential. 

 A challenging hypothesis can be formulated by assuming that the in- 

 herent electrical fields function as the required directing forces, and 

 that auxin is thereby transported in the form of electrically charged 

 particles. 



