Slow Wave Potentials –a Propagating Electrical Signal Unique to Higher Plants - Communication in Plants: Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life - page 305

and Wyse 1986). Accordingly, WPs (1) are accompanied by a strong re-
duction in the growth rate of the cucumber hypocotyl in a 40-mm range
from the wound site and (2) proceed without a change in cell input re-
sistance (Stahlberg and Cosgrove 1994, 1997a). Although WPs and SWPs
seem to share a similar ionic mechanism, WPs lack an important defining
characteristic of SWPs: distant propagation (Table 20.1). SWPs may have
evolvedasatypeofpropagatingWP.
Haberlandt (1890) suggested the existence of hydraulically propagated
electric potentials at a time when the only known electrical signals were
APs. It took time to find such signals and to understand that they coincide
with SWPs rather than APs. We slowly begin to realize that SWPs are not
simply ubiquitous but characteristic, defining signals for higher plants that
are missing in lower plants or animals.
Acknowledgements. We thank Daniel J. Cosgrove (Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity) for supporting early work on SWPs and William E. Bradley (Uni-
versity of Washington; deceased) for stimulating recent studies on this
topic.
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