Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1667/Miscellany

Influence of Nutrition on Form. — At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Mr. T. Meehan remarked that the influence which nutrition, in its various phases, had on the forms and characters of plants was an interesting study; and in this connection he had placed on record in the proceedings of the academy, that two species of Euphorbia, usually prostrate, assumed an erect growth when their nutrition was interfered with by an Æcidium — a small fungoid parasite. He had now to offer similar fact in connection with the common purslane (Portulaca oleracea), one of the most prostrate of all procumbent plants, which, under similar circumstances, also became erect.

Popular Science Review.