El misteri del moviment de les plantes. Darwin i la circumnutació de les enfiladisses

Abstract

The Mystery of Movement in Plants: Darwin and the Circumnutation of Climbing Plants.
Plants are able to bow and bend, a movement known as circumnutation, by means of which they can
 around a central axis during growth. This ability is more highly developed in climbing plants, whose different organs –stems, branches, fl ower peduncules, petioles, central nerves of the leaves and adventitious roots– have the power to move, giving them access to the optimal environmental
conditions in which to develop. Charles R. Darwin carried out the fi rst systematized study on the movement of climbing plants and proposed brilliant evolutionary hypotheses to explain their origin and the perfection of the ways in which climbing mechanisms are supported. Thanks to molecular analysis we have now begun to understand the genetic bases of circumnutation movement.