CHANGING PLANTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 239, 9 October 1934, Page 10

CHANGING PLANTS.

EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENT,

REMARKABLE DIFFERENCES.

How environment brings about such definite changes in the forms of some plants that they may be mistaken for another kind was described by Dr. H. H. Allen, botanist at the plant research station, Palmerston North, in a lecture at the University College Hall last evening. One plant experimented upon had even changed from male to female form, and vice versa, under differing conditions of heat, light, and moisture. Dr. Allen described the two schools of thought in regard to the effect of environment on plant forms. The more popular school had satisfied themseivcs by years of careful experimenting that plants could definitely be changed by altered atmospheric conditions, whereas another investigator had claimed that as the result of his own experiments he had established that plants taken from widely varying natural conditions were unchanged when all were allowed to grow under a like condition. Others had supported the view of n m changeability, but generally speaking, environment has been proved to lie a deli nice factor in the moulding of plant forms. Remarkable difference'', particularly in leaf forms, had been noticed in plants of the same general cultured under canditions of light and shade, velness or dryness, or high and low altitudes. English botanists had undertaker; experiments to see what different soil oonditions would do to a plant. Although 'heir results so far had not been very evening, they had shown that, in some cases, plants had practically created their own soil from such grounds as sand. Another interesting development in plant forms had been made in recent years with X-ray treatment. Although, in some cases, the new form evolved had not been consistent in successive generations, in others the new form had survived for at least three generations. Furthermore, the effects 'it the X-ray on the original plant had *-o far proved inconsistent. In some ca-es an abnormal growth had been achieved, and in others the new form appeared rather atrophied. With the assistance of a comprehensive set of lantern slides Dr. Allen illustrated his address, and showed exactly the effect of altered conditions of plants under varying environments and with X-rav treatment or different soils.