58 MR. DABWIN ON CLIMBING PLANTS. 



selves out, following "with accuracy every inequality of the sur- 

 face. I then placed a post without bark, hut much fissured, and 

 the points of the tendrils crawled into all the crevices in a beau- 

 tiful manner. To my surprise, I observed that the tips of imma- 

 ture tendrils, with the branches not yet fully separated, likewise 

 crawled, just like roots, into the minutest crevices. In two or 

 three days after the tips had thus crawled into the crevices, or 

 after their hooked ends had seized some minute point, the final 

 process, now to be described, commenced. 



This process I discovered by having accidentally left a piece of 

 ■wool near a tendril. I then bound a quantity of flax, moss, and 

 wool (the wool must not be dyed, for these tendrils are ex- 

 cessively sensitive to some poisons) loosely round sticks, and placed 

 them near tendrils. The hooked points soon caught the fibres, 

 even loosely floating fibres, and now there was no recoiling ; on the 

 contrary, the excitement from the fibres caused the hooks to pene- 

 trate the fibrous matter and to curl inwards, so that each hook 

 firmly caught one or two fibres, or a small bundle of them. The 

 tips and the inner surfaces of the hooks now began to swell, and 

 in two or three days could be seen to be visibly enlarged. After 

 a few more days the hooks were converted into whitish, irregular 

 balls, rather above the -^th of an inch in diameter, and formed of 

 coarse cellular tissue, which sometimes wholly enveloped and 

 concealed the hooks themselves. The surfaces of these balls secrete 

 some viscid resinous matter, to which the fibres of the flax, &c. 

 adhere. When a fibre has become fastened to the surface, the cel- 

 lular tissue does not grow directly beneath it, but continues to grow 

 closely on each side ; so that when several adjoining fibres, though 

 excessively thin, were caught, so many crests of cellular matter, 

 each not as thick as a human hair, grew up between them, and 

 these, arching over on both sides, grew firmly together. As the 

 whole surface of the ball continues to grow, fresh fibres adhere 

 and are enveloped ; so that I have seen a little ball with between 

 fifty and sixty fibres of flax crossing at various angles, all imbedded 

 more or less deeply. Every gradation in the process could be 

 seen — some fibres merely sticking to the surface, others lying in 

 more or less deep furrows, or deeply imbedded, or passing througi^ 

 the \ery centre of the cellular ball. The imbedded fibres are 

 so closely clasped that they cannot be withdrawn. The cellular 

 outgrowth has such a tendency to unite, that two balls pro- 

 duced from two branches sometimes grow into a single one. 



