Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1883 — Sensation in Plants. [ARTICLE]

Sensation in Plants.

M. Figuier believes that a plant has the sensation of pleasure and of pain. Cold, for instance, he says, affects it painfully. We see it contract, or, so to speak, shiver under a sudden or violent depression of temperature. An abnormal elevation of temperature evidently causes it to suffer, for in many vegetables, when the heat is excessive, the leaves droop on the stalk, fold themselves together and wither ; when the cool <?f the evening comes, the leaves straighten, and the plant resumes a serene and undisturbed appearance. Drought causes evident suffering to plants, for when they are watered after, a prolonged drought they show signs*’of satisfaction. The (sensitive plant, touched by the finger, or only visited by a current of urwelcome air, folds its petals and contracts itself. The botanist, Desfontaines, saw one, which he was conveying in a carriage, fold its leaves while the vehicle was in motion and expand them when it stopped—a proof that it was the motion that disturbed it. Sensation in plants is of the same kind as in animals,.since electricity Jails and crashes then! as it does animOs*. Plants may also, be put to sleep by washing them in opium dissolved in water and hydrocyanio acid destroys their vitality as quick as it does that of animsld, —Herlbner’s JtentMy. —__x ■'• ■. ■ ■ A Pek si an' can either marry, purchase or hire a wife for a specified time, and he is bound to support the’ offspring.