Ohap. ill. SENSITIVENESS OF EADICLES. 129 



CHAPTEE III. 



Sensitiveness op the Apex of the Radicle to Costact and to 



OTHER IrKITANTS. 



Manner in which radicles bend when they encounter an obstacle in 

 the soil — Vicia faba, ti|is of radicles highly sensitive to contact 

 and other irritants — Effects of too high a temperature — Power of 

 disoriminatin!; between objects attached on opposite sides — Tips of 

 secondary radicles sensitive — Pisum, tips of radicles sensitive — 

 Effects of Buoh sensitiveness in ovt-rcoming geotropism— Secondary 

 radicles — Phaseohis, tips of radiclis hardly sensitive to contact 

 but highly sensitive to caustic and to the removal of a slice — Tro- 

 pscolum — Gossypium — Cuourbita — Baphanus — ^sculus, tip not 

 sensitive to sliglit contact, highly sensitive to caustic — Quercus, 

 tip highly sensitive to contact — Power of discrimination — Zea 

 tip highly sensitive, secondary radicles — Sensitiveness of radicles 

 to moist ail- — Summary of chapter. 



In order to see how the radicles of seedlangs would 

 pass over stones, roots, and other obstacles, which they 

 must incessantly encounter in the soil, germinating 

 beans (Vicia faba) were so placed that the tips of the 

 radicles came into contact, almost rectangularly or 

 at a high angle, with underlying plates of glass. In 

 other cases the beans were turned about whilst their 

 radicles were growing, so that they descended nearly 

 vertically on their own smooth, almost flat, broad upper 

 surfaces. The delicate root-cap, when it first touched 

 any directly opposing surface, was a little flattened 

 transversely ; the flattening soon became oblique, and 

 in a few hours quite disappeared, the apex now point- 

 ing at right angles, or at nearly right angles, to its 

 former course. The radicle then seemed to glide in 

 its new direction over the surface which had opposed 



