Medical Officers of the Army of India .

117

TABLE IV.—Showing the Results following section of Pinnules at different
points in Pinnœ
—concluded.

No. of
Experi-
ment.
Result.
26 Pause; centripetal action in that pinna; long pause; very slow, centrifugal action
     in it; action in the primary pulvinus; slight action in the other pinnæ no
     further result.
27 Pause; centripetal action in the cut pinna; imperfect, centrifugal action in it;
     action in the primary pulvinus; slight action in the remaining pinnæ.
28 Pause; centripetal action in the cut pinna; long pause; action in its secondary
     pulvinus; long pause; centrifugal action in the cut pinna; very slight action in
     the remaining pinnæ; no further result; primary pulvinus readily responsive
     to mechanical impulse.
29 Pause; centripetal action in the cut pinna; centrifugal action in it; action in
     the other pinna (a two-pinnaed leaf); action in the primary pulvinus; no
     further result.

       This table consists of the results in a series of experiments carried out
in a morning following a night in the early part of which there had been a heavy
shower of rain. The morning was cloudless but slightly hazy, the sunshine had
not at the time of experiment reached the brake of Mimosa, and the leaves were
widely expanded, well-washed but relatively dry, the amount of adherent moisture
being trifling as compared with that present after a normal dewy night. The
results of the experiments are typical for plants under similar conditions.
The amount of action in the leaves was almost in every case very limited,
the action sometimes being confined to the cut pinna, sometimes extending
to other pinnae in greater or less degree, but leaving the primary pulvinus
unaffected, and in no case was the action complete throughout the leaf. In 6
cases only did the primary pulvinus act immediately in sequence to the cut
pinnules, but in io cases it acted before any of the uninjured pinnæ and in some of
these before action in the cut pinna was completed. These results in regard to
the period at which the primary pulvinus acted should be compared with those
in Table VII, in which we have io cases, in 8 of which action in the primary
pulvinus immediately succeeded action in the injured pinnules. This difference,
as well as the generally-limited character of the action in the leaves, cannot
be ascribed to any incapacity for action in these cases, for the contractile
apparatus almost without exception responded fully to direct impulses. They
are, however, just what the conditions under which the plants were at the time
of experiment will account for. There had been a recent and abundant supply