160 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



under-surface of the leaves. The movements in 

 question are so obvious during the period of active 

 vegetation that no doubt can exist on the subject. 

 Unlike M. Chatin, however, I have observed that the 

 white hue of Abies Nordmanniana is more con- 

 spicuous when the branches are exposed to the full 

 rays of the sun. The same remark holds good of 

 other species. " 1 



The tips of runners, or stolons, of such plants as 

 the garden strawberry, exhibit just the same rotating 

 movements as stems. The same may be said also of 

 the flowering stems of various plants, such as that of 

 the rape, as observed by Sachs ; wood-sorrel, as 

 observed by Darwin and others, to which the last 

 author has alluded. A larger number of observations 

 has been made on the rotation, or circumnutation 

 of leaves ; and, as the phenomena are similar in all, 

 illustrations of this latter kind will suffice. 



The leaves of the cabbage rise at night and fall by- 

 day, an irregular ellipse being formed every twenty- 

 four hours. The leaves of the Swedish turnip draw 

 together so much in the evening, that, according to 

 Mr. Stephen Wilson, " the horizontal breadth di- 

 minishes about 30 per cent, of the daylight breadth." 



In the common bean (Vicia faba) the whole leaf 

 and the terminal leaflets pass through regular well- 



1 "Journal of Linncean Society," vol. xvii., p. 550. 



