IV 



FIRST STEPS IN MICROSCOPIC MOTION PHOTOGRAPHY 



WORK of the sort described in the chapter, Opening, 

 Maturity and Passing of Flowers, took many years to 

 accomplish and seemed to be at about the limit of its 

 possibilities, but the desire to picture all the steps in 

 the cycle of life of a plant instead of just the opening 

 of its bud, which was only one step although an 

 important one in its life story urged me on to more 

 exhaustive endeavors to try to picture the more hid- 

 den steps. 



Watching the germination of seeds, the root 

 growth and root hairs, the seed splitting open and 

 the first leaves forming, the growth of the plant, the 

 effect of geotropism on the growing plant and roots, 

 the forming of the buds, their opening, the life of 

 the blossom, its dropping off, petal by petal, and the 

 pod growing behind it all of this was of absorbing 

 interest, but with all of these visible steps pictured, 

 the hidden mass of what happened in the pollen 

 grain; just what growth means and how it is accom- 

 plished; the circulation of the sap; protoplasm and 

 its movements; the nucleus; the chromosomes; and 

 a host of other things, as the mingling of the nuclei 



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