| THE PHYSICAL FUNCTIONS OF LEAVES. |
AN elaborate study on the above subject has lately been published by Prof. J. Boussingault, of Paris, in the "Annales de Chimie et de Physique" (vol. xiii., pp. 289-394), in which the phenomena of absorption and transpiration by leaves are treated at great length. Since the memorable experiments of Hales in 1727, recounted in his work on "Vegetable Statics," this branch of vegetable physiology has been rarely touched, and the carefully recorded observations of Boussingault, carried out with the best of modern scientific appliances, possess an unusual value.
The first point studied was the loss of water by transpiration from the leaves of plants under normal circumstances. For this purpose a healthy Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) in a roomy flower-pot was chosen. The top of the pot was covered with a sheet of India-rubber, tightly inclosing the stem of the plant, and provided with an opening for the admission of water. The whole was then weighed, and the loss noted which ensued under various circumstances, by evaporation of water from the leaves, the plant receiving during the experiment weighed normal amounts of water. The total surface of the leaves of the plant (both upper and lower sides) was carefully estimated, and the result reckoned on the square metre. The averages of fourteen experiments showed that the artichoke lost hourly, for every square metre of foliage, the following amounts of water: in the sunshine sixty-five grammes, in the shade eight grammes, during the night three grammes.
In the next place the question was investigated whether the absorption of water by plants and the ascent of the sap are due to the force resulting from the transpiration on the surface of the leaves, or whether the roots exercise also a certain amount of force to this end. For this purpose experiments similar to the above were carried out with various plants, firstly under normal circumstances, secondly with the stem minus the roots immersed in water. As an instance we can take mint. The plant with roots showed an hourly evaporation per metre of eighty-two grammes in the sunshine and thirty-six in the shade. Under the same condition without roots, the evaporation was sixteen and fifteen grammes respectively.
The results show that the absorption of water by plants is determined in a great measure by the transpiration occurring in the leaves, that this is maintained for a certain length of time without the assistance of the roots, but cannot continue long, being dependent on the injective power possessed by the roots. The effect of pressure on the absorption was next examined, and it was found possible by this means for a time in certain cases to even more than replace the water lost by transpiration. For example: a chestnut-branch dipped in water was
