Page:Life Movements in Plants.djvu/150

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LIFE MOVEMENTS IN PLANTS

show that under parallel conditions the latent period also remains unaffected : —

TABLE V. — SHOWING 'IHE EFFECT OF ELECTRIC CURRENT ON IHK LATENT PERIOD.

Specimens I. JL

I sec. sec.

Latent period under normal condition 0"10 0'09

,, „ current from right to left \ O'll | 0-10

,, ., current from left to right i 0"09 0-09

The results of experiments with two different specimens given above show that a current applied under the given conditions has practically no effect on the latent period, the slight variation being of the order of one-hundredth part of a second. This is quite negligible when the total period observed for transmission is, as in the following cases, equal to nearly 2 seconds.

Induced changes in the Velocity of Transmission. — Having found that the average value of the latent period in sum- mer is O'l second, we next proceed to determine the in- fluence of the direction of current on velocity.

Experiment 41. — As a rule, stimulus of induction shock was applied in this and in the following experiments on the petiole at a distance of 15 mm. from the responding pulvinus. The recording writer was tuned to 10 vibrations per second ; the space between two succeeding dots, therefore, represents a time-interval of 0*1 second. The middle record, N in Fig. 46, is the normal. There are 17 spaces between the application ot stimulus and the beginning of response. The total time is therefore 1*7 seconds, and by subtracting from it the latent period of 0*1 second we obtain the true time, 1*6 seconds. The normal velocity is found l)y dividing the distance 15