I used to be fascinated by mimosa plants, that suddenly fold up their leaves and lower
their branches when touched. There are a couple words for this: Thigmatropism is one.
I have a book that says haptotropism is another, but I can't confirm this on Internet.
At first I had thigmatropism confused with thixotropic, which was term for behaviour
of a penicillin preparation that was like very thick cream, but when you put needle into
vial and pulled back on plunger, it flowed as readily as water.
We've all seen plants that put out tendrils that when they touch a potential support,
wrap around it more and more as growing plant becomes heavy. Grapes, ivy, etc. for
instance. My book says this is called haptotropism, response to touch.
The Venus flytrap! Very cool plant!
Wouldn't it be a marvelous thing to have a garden that only had plants that moved--a garden packed with moving plants. You'd feel their eyes upon you--as though moving through a haunted gallery of portraits whose eyes followed you, only it would be the plants that would move if you brushed past them. the thigmatropic garden--the haptotropic garden...What are the adjectives here, I wonder? But the concept is a frightening one to consider!
there is a common house plant too, i think it is the prayer plant, its leaves become more upright, and pair up, (like praying hands...) when touched.
and the common rhododendron, acts as a thermometer. in the winter, they leaves tend to curl, (under) and become more vertical. the colder the day, the more they curl and drop into a vertical position... on really cold days, the shrub looks like it is festooned with green cigars, not leaves! (the plant does this to conserve water-with the ground frozen, it can't really take up more water, but with the cold, and wind, the leave can become desicated. the curling action reduces the surface. )
and there are the common sun flowers, and other sun flowers too.. coriopius, (a small golden daisy like perennial) and other similar flowers all turn to the sun, and move there head each day.
The turning of plants towards the sun is called phototropism. I still remember how exciting
it was back in 1935 to learn about auxin, the hormone that is produced to cause cells to
multiply and increase in size on side away from sun, to cause plant to lean towards sun
and keep flowers facing sun. We could grow oat seedlings, crush them, and filter juice.
Then the juice could be made into a jelly, and tiny cubes cut out of gelatin, and placed
in contact with a new seedling. The seedling would become angualted away from the
loction of the auxin cube, and the angle produced was used as crude assay for
concentration of auxin in the jelly.
At the same time, we learned about ethylene gas being used to cause bananas to ripen.
Those were the days, my friend.
and there are the common sun flowers, and other sun flowers too.. coriopius, (a small golden daisy like perennial) and other similar flowers all turn to the sun, and move there head each day.there is a sci-fi book,
Ringworld, by Larry Niven, in which there are fields of giant sunflowers that act in concert to redirect the sun's rays to zap prey out of the sky. such a vivid image...
Dear etaoin: I could not find coriopius when searching for "botany coriopius". It reminded me of Secret Life of Walter Mitty - "Coriopsis is setting in."
Dear Bill,
I think you may be onto something:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2C452E22I've always loved coreopsis.
Helen, do you want to confirm your spelling?
Helen, do you want to confirm your spelling?
What!? Sooner ask the sun to rise in the west!
Let's be considerate of the Face That Launched a Thousand Ships. Her errors of orthography
are not just carelessness like mine. She has achieved a remarkable victory over a sneaky
disability that is no fault of hers. I admire her for it.
I was in no way being critical of the beautiful one's spelling. I was curious as to whether there was another flower with a similar spelling, and wondered if she could confirm.
my apologies to any that may have been offended.
Dear etaoin: I was aiming at my favorite "adversary" Faldage.He needs help to be good.
He thinks he is Godot. Just kidding, old buddy.
no, eta, you have the spelling correct..i did try to look it up, but my dictionary was being most disagreeable, and the word was hiding.
i have always hated being told "look up the spelling in a dictionary" which, always has things in strict alphabetical order, and spelled correctly..
if i knew how to spell it, (ie the correct order of the letters) i wouldn't need to look it up..and if i don't know if it is i or e or maybe some silent letter stuck in there, or a double rr, or some other unexpected letter..how am i supposed to find it..
i have to make choices in my live.. or opt to do things.. or settle on something.. because i can never be sure if it deside or diside or dicide or decide, unless i have a really good spell checker at hand. i can't tell you how many times i have looked it up, but the pattern of letters has never established its self in my mind.
Aenigma is a dear, but useless!
M-W's on line dictionary is excellent for the purpse of checking unsure spellings. If you're half way close it usually gives you the correct version in its first or second choice.
Coriopsis returned the correct spelling as the first choice and
corriapsis returned it as the second. Look up the word with a simple click and see if the definition matches.
http://m-w.com
Can it give a correct spelling of "kapokita-pokita-pokita" ?
Or "chitty-chitty bang-bang"?
kapokita-pokita-pokita
Nothing given for this but
kapokita by itself gives copycat, copacetic, capita, capacity and, my favorite, cuckoopint.
Pokita gives picotee, pokiest, pocket, pockiest, picoted, pussycat, Pickett and piquet.
Chitty-chitty-bang-bang is left as an exercise for the interested student.
One of the spelling bee words new to me is "coryopsis"
caryopsis
A dry single- seeded indehiscent fruit that differs from an achene in that the fruit wall is fused to the
testa of the seed. It is the grain of cereals and grasses.