THE EYES OF PLANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 213, 5 September 1912, Page 8

THE EYES OF PLANTS.

EEMiAKKABLE DISCOVERIES. " Condemned on the testimony of a scarlet geranium" may become one of the formulae of our law courts (says the '"New York World"). After long experimenting and study. Professor Gottlieb Habexlandt, of the Botanic Institute of Gratz, in Styria, declares that plants, the word taken in its widest sense and including trees, can see. The professor says that his observations hare, been confirmed by Dγ Nutall, of London, and Dγ Harold Wagner. He has succeeded through photography and the use of the microscope in reproducing the images reflected on the visual organs of plants. The images included objects at different, distances, and even persons and houses. Plants may, he says, be classed with the inferior animals in this respect. He informs us that the epidermic cells of a plant are in fact just so many convex lens, as perfect as the facets "of an insect's eye. In the common house fly there are over 4,000 such facets, while the butterfly boasts of 17,000 eyes. Each left cellule of a plant Banailogous to the facet of the fly's eye, which acts as another eye, says Professor Haberkndt, and in the same way reflects an infinite number of objects on the visual organ. A forest, spreading its myriad leaves to the sunshine, reflects in this way the sunbeams in its multitude of mirrors, each epidermic cell forming a separate lens. We arc still so ignorant of animal plant and insect life (because we do not understand their language) that we fancy the plant, like the insect, is not conscious of what -it sees, but that is probably a discovery for the future. At present we are forced to accept the theory that they are. not conscious. But that they do see Professor Haberlandt says he has satisfactorily proved. The eyes of plants appear different from the eyes of insects in that they have no colouring matter, though it is not yet determined. The professor is continuing his experiments, and he expects to make further interesting and surprising ' announcements. That plants and trees have eyes is undoubtedly a proof that all natural life is linked in one long chain. It suggests many strange thoughts. "What the pot P ™ saw" may become evidence in a S * M ««*™>iag as a gramoor otbT°w *? the bm * lar ' a^derer, find it I*. Ongd ° eTS in the ft*w« 'xil trad it necessary not only to wear clove«