Evolution, Old & New / Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, / as compared with that of Charles Darwin

by Samuel Butler

"The approach of the anthers in many flowers to the stigmas, and of the pistils of some flowers to the anthers, must be ascribed to the passion of love, and hence belongs to sensation, not to irritation.

"III. That the vegetable world possesses some degree of voluntary powers appears from their necessity to sleep, which we have shown in Section XVIII. to consist in the temporary abolition of voluntary power. This voluntary power seems to be exerted in the circular movement of the tendrils of the vines, and other climbing vegetables; or in the efforts to turn the upper surfaces of their leaves, or their flowers, to the light.

"IV. The associations of fibrous motions are observable in the vegetable world as well as in the animal. The divisions of the leaves of the sensitive plant have been accustomed to contract at the same time from the absence of light; hence, if by any other circumstance, as a slight stroke or injury, one division is irritated into contraction, the neighbouring ones contract also from their motions being associated with those of the irritated part. So the various stamina of the class of syngenesia have been accustomed to contract together in the evening, and thence if you stimulate any one of them with a pin, according to the experiment of M. Colvolo, they all contract from their acquired associations.

"To evince that the collapsing of the sensitive plant is not owing to any mechanical vibrations propagated along the whole branch when a single leaf is struck with the finger, a leaf of it was slit with sharp scissors, with as little disturbance as possible, and some seconds of time passed before the plant seemed sensible of the injury, and then the whole branch collapsed as far as the principal stem. This experiment was repeated several times with the least possible impulse to the plant.

"V. 1. For the numerous circumstances in which vegetable buds are analogous to animals, the reader is referred to the additional notes at the end of 'Botanic Garden,' Part I. It is there shown that the roots of vegetables resemble the lacteal system of animals; the sap vessels in the early spring, before their leaves expand, are analogous to the placental vessels of the fœtus; that the leaves of land plants resemble lungs, and those of aquatic plants the gills of fish; that there are other systems of vessels resembling the vena portarum of quadrupeds, or the aorta of fish; that the digestive power of vegetables is similar to that of animals converting the fluids which they absorb into sugar;[164] that their seeds resemble the eggs of animals, and their buds and bulbs their viviparous offspring; and lastly, that the anthers and stigmas are real animals attached to their parent tree like polypi or coral insects, but capable of spontaneous motion; that they are affected with the passion of love, and furnished with powers of reproducing their species, and are fed with honey like the moths and butterflies which plunder their nectaries.[165]

"The male flowers of Vallisneria approach still nearer to apparent animality, as they detach themselves from the parent plant, and float on the surface of the water to the female ones.[166] Other flowers of the classes of monœcia and diœcia, and polygamia discharge the fecundating farina, which, floating in the air, is carried to the stigma of the female flowers, and that at considerable distances. Can this be effected by any specific attraction? Or, like the diffusion of the odorous particles of flowers, is it left to the currents of the winds, and the accidental miscarriages of it counteracted by the quantity of its production?

"2. This leads us to a curious inquiry, whether vegetables have ideas of external things? As all our ideas are originally received by our senses, the question may be changed to whether vegetables possess any organs of sense? Certain it is that they possess a sense of heat and cold, another of moisture and dryness, and another of light and darkness, for they close their petals occasionally from the presence of cold, moisture, or darkness. And it has been already shown that these actions cannot be performed simply from irritation, because cold and darkness are negative quantities, and on that account sensation, or volition are implied, and in consequence a sensorium or union of their nerves. So when we go into the light we contract the iris; not from any stimulus of the light on the fine muscles of the iris, but from its motions being associated with the sensation of too much light upon the retina, which could not take place without a sensorium or centre of union of the nerves of the iris, with those of vision.[167]

"Besides these organs of sense, which distinguish cold, moisture, and darkness, the leaves of mimosa, and of dionæa, and of drosera, and the stamens of many flowers, as of the berbery, and the numerous class of syngenesia, are sensible to mechanic impact, that is, they possess a sense of touch, as well as a common sensorium, by the medium of which their muscles are excited into action. Lastly, in many flowers the anthers, when mature, approach the stigma, in others the female organ approaches to the male. In a plant of collinsonia, a branch of which is now before me, the two yellow stamens are about three-eighths of an inch high, and diverge from each other at an angle of about fifteen degrees, the purple style is half an inch high, and in some flowers is now applied to the stamen on the right hand, and in others to that of the left; and will, I suppose, change place to-morrow in those, where the anthers have not yet effused their powder.

"I ask by what means are the anthers in many flowers and stigmas in other flowers directed to find their paramours? How do either of them know that the other exists in their vicinity? Is this curious kind of storge produced by mechanic attraction, or by the sensation of love? The latter opinion is supported by the strongest analogy, because a reproduction of the species is the consequence; and then another organ of sense must be wanted to direct these vegetable amourettes to find each other, one probably analogous to our sense of smell, which in the animal world directs the new-born infant to its source of nourishment, and they may thus possess a faculty of perceiving as well as of producing odours.

"Thus, besides a kind of taste at the extremity of their roots, similar to that of the extremities of our lacteal vessels, for the purpose of selecting their proper food, and besides different kinds of irritability residing in the various glands, which separate honey, wax, resin, and other juices from their blood; vegetable life seems to possess an organ of sense to distinguish the variations of heat, another to distinguish the varying degrees of moisture, another of light, another of touch, and probably another analogous to our sense of smell. To these must be added the indubitable evidence of their passion of love, and I think we may truly conclude that they are furnished with a common sensorium for each bud, and that they must occasionally repeat those perceptions, either in their dreams or waking hours, and consequently possess ideas of so many of the properties of the external world, and of their own existence."[168]