177 



stalit' apparatus, \vl1ereb3' tiie middle-field is shifted from tiie lowest 

 transverse wall to one of the longitudinal walls; by the bending of 

 the sleni this longitudinal wall would then become the lowest of the 

 statocyst. If the apparatus in the cell shifts over 90°, the new position 

 of the stem-lip will become exactly horizontal; if, on the contrary, 

 it moves less, the stem-tip will, as is often the case, assume a corres- 

 ponding upward slope. 



Similar changes in position, as seen in many flowers before and 

 after flowering, may be explained in an equally simple way. The 

 (lowers of Narcissus, for example, when in bud stand |)erfectly 

 upright, but when about to open are practically horizontal, which 

 again woidd point to a preceding shifting of the apparatus from the 

 lower transverse wall to one of the longitudinal walls. In ^(^a/wn^/ató- 

 the same movement occurs, but goes farther on, because after 

 fertilization the ovary bends still further downward; in this case 

 a further shifting in the same direction should have taken place, 

 liy which idtimately the middle-field arrived at the apical trans- 

 verse wall. 



In all these movements the bending is accompanied by a distinct 

 growth of fiower- and of fruit-stalk. Amputation of the flower-bud 

 will prevent these movements, for which reason it is assumed that 

 the statocysts are situated in the ovary. 



Other plants again exhibit the phenomenon that the peduncle 

 which stands upright during bloom, after fertilization increases much 

 in length and curves downward; this is most striking with those 

 plants which bury their young fruit in the ground, e.g. Trifolium 

 subternmeum, Arachis, etc.; hei'e the shifting of the apparatus from 

 the lowest transverse wall to the highest should take place in one phase. 



In all these cases the change of position of the static apparatus 

 is clearly a result of a separate new stimulation which is either 

 the growth of the (lower or the process of fertilization. 



A shifting of the apparatus in a contrary sense should take place 

 in those cases in which the tip of the sympodial rhizome bends 

 veitically upwards for the purpose of producing leaves and flowers, 

 because this upward curve would have to be preceded by a displace- 

 ment from the lowest longitudinal wall to the basal transverse wall. 



The best known instance of a particular curvation is that of the 

 flowerstalk of Papaver (to which (hose of the peduncles of the 

 inflorescenses of Tiissilago Farfara are closely connected), since 

 there the movement has to take place before the flowering in one 

 sense and after the fertilization in the opposite direction. Vöchting 

 in 1882 succeeded in demonstrating that these movements are inti- 



