The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-05-13

essentially the same in the two king
doms; and to vegetable life faculties are
superadded in the lower animals, some
of which are here and there indistinctly
foreshadowed in plants.
Darwin has observed in the arosera
rotundifolia. a faculty for selecting its
food, which in animals would certainly
be attributed to voJition. Mrs. Treat
has described the same trait in the plant
On being deceived by means of piece of
toward it, but Immediately discovering
its mistake, withdrew then. The plant
would bend toward fly held within
reach, enfold it, and suck its juices; but
weuld disregard the bait if out of reach,
showing not only purposive movement
| Cor a refusal to move, as the case might
warranty, but also certain power of es-
timating distance.
Again, Darwin has shown that the
more perfect tendril bearers among
climbing plants bend toward or from the
light, or disregard it ,as may be most advan-
tageous. Also, that the tendrils of va
rious climbers frequently attached them
selves to objects presented to them ex-
perimentally, but soon withdrew on find
ing the support unsuitable. He says of
the brinonia capreolata that its tendrils
"soon recoiled, with what 1 can only
call disgust" from glass tube or zinc
plate and Strengthened themselves. Of
another bignonia, he says that the termi.
nal part of the tendril exhibits an odd
habit, which in an animal would be
called an instinct, for it continually
searches for any little dark hole in which
to insert itself. The same tendril would
frequently withdraw from one hole and
insert its point in another. In like man.
ner, spirally twining plants seem to
search for proper supports, rejecting
those not suitable.
Speaking of phenomena of this sort,
Dr. Lindsay makes this strong remark:
"In carnivorous and climbing plants,
there is choice or alternative between
action or inaction, acceptance or refusal
and the choice made is not always judi
cious. There may be an error, and the
error may be corrected but in order to
such correction, there must surely be
some kind of consciousness or perception
that mistake has been committed; an
exercise of will in making further efforts
at success, and knowledge of means to
an end, with their proper adaptation or
application"
According to Prot. Laycock, organic
memory is common to both animals and
plants, and certain ianas seem to exhib-
it in it marked degree in their antipa-
thy to certain trees. The botanist
Brown has remarked that the trees
which the lianas refuse to crawl around
are physically incapable of supporting
the climbers.
And not only do many plants act, as
one might say, reasonably, but some ex-
hibit the opposite quality. In his
" Vegetable Physiology" Prof. Lawson
speaks of the eccentric movements of the
side leaflets of hedysarum gyrans, which
make it appear as though the whole plant
were actuated by a feeling of caprice.
In many cases observers are, no doubt,
and mistake mechanical
and wholly unconscious mimicry of in
telligent action for an actual exhibition
Of intelligence; still such men as DIR.
Gray and Mr.. Darwin are not apt to be
deluded by mimicry or figures of speech;
and however much it may run counter
to popular notions of what is proper to
plant life, the hypothesis that intelli-
yence' does not end with animal life
seems by no means inconsistent with
multitude of trustworthy observations.
Scientific american.