Plant Life At Work (1955)

however we can witness this wonderful event in the life of a plant by using timelapse photography within this field of poppies a great variety of tasks are being accomplished by the plants at work energy is being used for movement growth the manufacturer of food and even reproduction let's use the time-lapse camera to compress four full days and nights in the life of a single poppy plant into less than half a minute on the screen on the morning of the first day the poppies pop open and late in the afternoon they close the next morning they open again and at night they close the third morning they open and at night they close then the fourth morning they struggle open wither and die there is a lot of force involved in the growing of living things the struggle of this bird of paradise to open is an example of the same kind of force that enables growing roots to lift a sidewalk or crack the foundations of a house the ruffled Blossom of the aelia opens slowly and carefully revealing exquisite beauty fashioned and tinted by the master artist we might think it's the wind blowing the leaves of the daffodil back and forth but these pictures were taken in the laboratory and there's no wind there the leaves you see grow first on one side then on the other giving them this swaying motion but of course it takes the time-lapse camera to record it it's much too slow for the eye alone to catch sometimes it takes a chamia bud months to open but here you see it loom in just 18 seconds time compressed 50,000 times each flower has its own special tempo of growth the Bonia is so active it's almost impossible to keep the camera focused upon it the fuchsia is a favorite with gardeners everywhere but how many of them realize that it grow Rose like it had a bad case of hiccups the star-like blossoms of the Christmas cactus have a beauty that's characteristic of the whole Cactus family plants don't grow all the time they grow a while then they rest in this Rose for example there's a period of growth then a period of rest then a period of growth and a period of rest flowers are as different as human beings the Hibiscus seems to have quite a sense of the dramatic as it unfurls with a grand gesture and a riot of color but plants are working at something far more vital than Beauty green plants produce directly or indirectly every bit of food we eat remember the first time you decided to raise food for your family you planted the seeds and covered them so carefully and you rather expected the plants to pop up out of the ground like this but somehow it didn't quite work out that way you got to wondering well maybe I planted those seeds upside down is there a right and a wrong end to a seed on opening of bean seed we find the embryonic roote points in a definite Direction this this determines the direction of initial growth so it is possible to plant a seed upside down but the root always grows toward the pull of gravity and away from the sunlight this growth in response to a stimulus is called a tropism even if we try to fool the growing seed it doesn't get mixed up the root reverses its direction and continues to grow downward in its downward growth the roote is attracted toward moisture if encounters a dry region like the red area it limits its growth to the area of moisture the tap rots develop first and push rapidly downward in search of water then the secondary or Branch begin to develop producing a typical Tap Root system we've watched The Roots underground now let's plant another seed and watch the planted work above the ground within a few days the stem of the new bean plant forces its way through the hard packed ground and struggles upward the bean is used for this experiment because it's one of the plants that brings the calans or food storing parts of the seed up above the ground the plant plant must depend upon this stored up food until such time as the leaves develop and reach the sunlight the plant will then be manufacturing its own food with the time-lapse camera we can actually see the Caledon shrivel and die as they give up the last of their food to the bean plant as the plant develops its tip circles about seeking support for its upward climb place a stick nearby and the plant exhibits another tropism an uncanny Instinct for direction and soon coils itself about the stick the purpose of this struggle is to place the leaves in the sunlight but if light can't be found by growing upward the Chute will grow in any direction to reach it even if it has to detour through a small hole to get there plant two seeds at the same time grow one in the light and the other in the dark the one in the light soon has welldeveloped leaves but the one in the dark has wasted no energy in developing leaves which would be useless in the dark it has expanded all its energy in a frantic effort to reach the light so that the process of food production can carry on within its leaves these marvelous food factories are the the source of energy for all the life functions of the plant within the cells of green leaves the energy of sunlight is captured through the process of photosynthesis but let's look down inside the minute cells of the leaf and see this Factory actually in operation the dark green chlorophyll grains or chloroplasts move endlessly round and round inside the cells in some my serious way through the action of the sunlight this photosynthetic process takes carbon and oxygen from the carbon dioxide of the air and the hydrogen from the water of the ground combining them into carbohydrates and other food elements part of this food is used by the plant as energy for the constant activity of being alive some of the food is stored in the seed when the seed is planted under favorable conditions The Fabulous energy of life is released and another generation of bean plant shoots upward away from the gravity of the earth and toward the sunlight Above This is the principle that causes a tree to defy the law of gravity and reach high into the air the mysterious life forces at work in a single Redwood Giant are almost beyond our comprehension this tree is probably the oldest living thing on Earth it was 2,000 years old when Christ was born for 3,800 years this tree has been lifting tons of water each day to its top it is evident that there is an infinite power Behind The Mystery of Life and man must stand in reverent a as he sees the wisdom of the Creator's provision for plant life at work [Music] [Music]