Mediation of rapid electrical, metabolic, transpirational, and photosynthetic changes by factors released from wounds. I. Variation potentials and putative action potentials in intact plants

Abstract

Damaging representative plants from five angiosperm families by heating or crushing a small portion of a single leaf results in an electrical change which may spread throughout the shoot. In Mimosa, similar changes have previously been identified as variation potentials.Except in one of the five plants, a variation potential is often accompanied by brief fluctuations which may propagate either basipetally or acropetally and which have many of the properties of action potentials.The spread of a variation potential as described in Mimosa is due to the concommitant spread of a chemical substance in the transpiration stream. In this paper, it is shown that the spread of the purported variation potential is compatible with movement of material in the transpiration stream. In the next paper causation by a substance or group of substances, at present called Ricca's factor, is demonstrated.