[page] 129

The Power of Movement in Plants, by Prof. Charles Darwin (D. Appleton & Co.), is a work similar in its object to that which prompted the author to write Climbing Plants, Forms of Flowers, etc., and, of course, will receive the attention that any work from Darwin's pen will command. The principal design of the present work is to describe and connect together several large classes of movements common to almost all plants. It is asserted that the most widely prevalent movement is essentially of the same nature as that of the stem of the climbing plant, which bends successively to all points of the compass, so that the tip revolves. This movement is characterized by Prof. Darwin by the use of the terms circumnutate and circumnutation.

He contends that all the parts or organs in every plant whilst they continue to grow, and some parts which are provided with pulvini after they cease to grow, are continually circumnutating, and that this movement commences even before the young seedling has broken through the ground. The work is illustrated sufficiently to convey as clearly as possible to the reader's mind the statements advanced by the author.