Power Of Plants, The

[Music] [Music] the mysteries of nature are fascinating thousands of books have been written in an effort to explain these Mysteries and the man who can best explain them is of course our friend with the encyclopedic Mind Mr John Kieran right now Mr Kieran is in his library with Paul Milford his next door neighbor let's listen John I had an argument with my wife today had some Louis of the valley and I wasn't in favor of it and she didn't like it well what if because Wellies of the valley Paul they beautiful flowers well I agree with you they are beautiful but they're so delicate and I'm afraid they couldn't stand my wife's nuts so delicate gardening oh I wouldn't worry about that Paul Aly pushed themselves up through layer after layer of a heavy tin foil this I have to see John well Paul you'd be amazed that the power of tiny plants they push slowly but they push firmly that's another one of the MTH of nature now we're going to see a demonstration of the power in plants come to think of it every growing plant is a power plant now you take these sunflowers here's one of them blossoming very quickly before your eyes here through time-lapse photography that would take days and out in the sun but here it happens very quickly well it takes power to hold those uh big sunflower heads up in the air on those stalks and uh let's see where this power comes from the wind blows them about and the rain pelts down on them but still they stand up we'll cut down through this stock and see what does it the center is hollow that saves material but the outer rim is made of stiff fibers those are very strong and that's how this plant manages to stand up as we saw it now this waving field of grain or grass May lift 6 and 1/2 tons of water in a single day in the growing season that takes power to lift all that water and it takes power to hold all the wood in in great trees uh there may be tons of wood in a tall tree take power to hold it up there here's a plant fiber we attach the upper part to a clamp and U tie a platform to the bottom and we'll put some weights on that platform and see just how much strength how much power there is in what looks like a tender plant fiber now there's 2 and 2/10 lb 4 and 4/10 lb 5 and 1/2 lb and it's only at 52 lbs that that plant fiber starts to tear and break now we take a cup of wire and subject it to the same [Music] test that's 2 and 2/10 lb 4 and 4/10 lb and there goes the copper wire and I'll bet you thought that the copper wire was much the stronger now in addition to standing on their own feet uh plants have other ways of applying power and helping themselves they run tendrils of this kind and they cling to poles or uh trellises that we put up for them this is a melon Vine and to carry its heavy fruits it needs a good deal of uh Power to cling to supports in this case it's a heavy melon which is being held up by those tendrils and also where it joins the main trunk of the very strong stem of further application of power implant [Music] here's a stone being lifted [Music] by that are being planted you know they're very small we cover them over Pat them down like telling them to be good now then when the seeds germinate you get an idea of the power when you see the way they lift the Earth that was pounded down over [Music] them this time-lapse photography has its humorous aspects of course now there are germinating seeds in in that uh pot there and we put a sheet of Glass on it and you notice how the ceilings as they arise you just lift that glass off very [Music] easily and a dance of triumph over this exhibition of their power we put weights on the [Music] glass still doesn't do any good the plants have too much power this case you'd almost think they had some intelligence too they shove the the weights off first and then go to work on the grass [Music] these are lilies of the valley we'll pull up docks there and see how many layers of Dead Leaves it pushed through when it first poked its nose up out of the ground there's one two three there's one on the unders side four 5 six layers of leaves that it poked through when it first came up out of the ground now we was subjected to another test we put five layers of tin foil over those shoots of Lilies of the valley five and we'll see if they can fight their way through that in time in this case we are taking a picture every hour for 60 days and you'll see the result here in less than a minute [Music] well now you see the shoots of the lily of the valley are poking through five layers of tin foil proving that lilily of the valley is really a very strong armed girl looks like a birthday cake now it looks like a luxurious bit of asparagus we could use some hondai sauce but toward the end here it takes on the full flowering view of the Lili Valley and you can put it in the ready to wear to apartment now this tree gives off water at a tremendous rate a a big tree may give off 400 quarts of water in a day and all that water is drawn up out of the ground that takes power and the water is given off through the leaves there may be 100,000 leaves on a tree so we enclose this leaf underglass and as it gives off its water the water condenses on the [Music] glass now to prove the part uh Power of a growing plant we put this growing plant in a tube and let its root go down into a tube full of water and the water is based on a column of mercury now as the plant draws water up out of the tube the Mercury the rising Mercury shows how the water is being lifted by the growing plant above or'll pour some mercury into a u tube that's Mercury that you see bubbling down [Music] there and we'll take the open end of that tube on the right hand side there and apply it to a stalk of a growing plant now that growing plant has a root in the ground in the soil layer that pot and it is drawing water up out of that soil and it as the water is pulled into the right hand uh column it forces the Mercury down in the center column and the other Mercury rises in the left hand column proving lifting power of that growing plant now here's a further demonstration of the power of growing plants these are germinating these glass jars we'll fill them up with water seal them to make them watertight and airtight and watch the Power applied as the germinating seeds grow inside [Music] well there's the first one down there goes another one they'll all go in [Music] time you couldn't get a higher casualty rate in here if you rolled a bowling ball right down the middle and you know it takes power to roll a bowling ball along there's another way of applying power in the Plant World this is a daughter a daughter is a parasitic plant it looks like something very thin and tender of course these waving uh tendrils here looking like snakes or worms or something uh are acting that way because of the timelapse photography it's a very slow process in nature but here we speed it up for you your convenient life Bloods so remember when you're talking about tender plants in the future to be very careful about some of them because they have a lot of force and can apply [Music] it and that ends the trip Paul but next week we'll find ourselves exploring things in a far far different place through the Kaleidoscope quoting John Mayfield we can drive over the Earth swim under the sea or fly in the eagle secrecy and guess where the hidden comets be that's the wonderful thing about my Kaleidoscope Paul you never know where we'll turn up next [Music]