Quantitative Laws in Regeneration

It is well known that a long defoliated piece of stem of Bryophyllum calycinum forms shoots only at the apical or the two apical nodes, while when such a stem is cut into as many pieces as there are nodes each node produces shoots. It is shown in this paper that the dry weight of shoots produced in the apical nodes of a long piece of stem is approximately equal to the dry weight of shoots the same stem would have produced if it had been cut into as many pieces as it possesses nodes. Hence all the material which can be used for the growth of shoots goes into the most apical part of the stem and this accounts for the polar character of regeneration in this case. It seems that the mass of basal roots produced by a piece of defoliated stem also increases with the mass of the stem.