What was the title of Charles Darwin's 1880 book on plant movement?

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Charles Darwin’s 1880 book on plant movement was titled The Power of Movement in Plants. He wrote it with substantial assistance from his son Francis Darwin, a botanist.

Published on 6 November 1880 by John Murray, the book examined how plants respond to light, gravity, touch and other stimuli. Darwin focused especially on circumnutation, the continual bending or curving movements made by growing plant shoots and roots.

The work extended Darwin’s evolutionary thinking into plant biology. It discussed phototropism, geotropism, climbing movements and the “sleep” movements of leaves, showing how apparently purposeful plant behaviour could arise from modified growth processes.

The title is sometimes confused with Darwin’s earlier books. Climbing Plants was published in 1875, while Insectivorous Plants appeared the same year. His final major botanical book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, followed in 1881.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Sept. 2026

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