A time comes when, after one answer to a supreme shock, there is a
sudden end of the plant's power to give any response. This supreme shock
is the shock of death. Even in this crisis, there is no immediate change
in the placid appearance of the plant. Drooping and withering are events
that occur long after death itself. How does the plant then, give this
last answer? In man, at the critical moment, a spasm passes through the
whole body, and similarly in the plant, I find that a great contractile
spasm takes place. This is accompanied by an electrical spasm also. In
the script of the Morograph, or Death recorder, the line that up to this
point was being drawn, becomes suddenly reversed, and then ends. This is
the last answer of the plant.
These are mute companions, silently, growing beside our door, have now
told us the tale of their life-tremulousness and their death spasm, in
script that is as inarticulate as they. May it not be said that this
their story has a pathos of its own, beyond any that the poets have
conceived?