On some Brazilian Climbing-Plants. 287 



than one inch (fig. 2 a, a thickened tendril clasping a branch of a Psidium ; 

 b, branch issuing from the tendril; c, tendril-bearing branch; d, branch from an 

 accessory bud, without tendrils). Lastly, the tendrils even transform themselves 

 into true branches: in this case they may remain nearly straight or become but 

 little flexuous, and at their ends they produce leaves; the first of these leaves 

 have sometimes hook-like persistent stipules, like those of the tendril, while the 

 stipules of the following leaves are deciduous like those on other branches. These 

 tendrils often become much elongated. I saw a shoot, almost all the tendrils of 

 which were developed into serpentine branches ; and under each of these branches 

 there was a straight branch from an accessory bud. One of the tendrils was 

 thirty inches long; it had twenty-five pairs of hooks, and at the tip three short 

 internodes with leaves and destitute of hooks; from its seventeenth internode a 

 branch arose. Excepting their hook-like stipules, by which they may be easily 

 recognized, the branches formed by tendrils resemble in almost every respect the 

 ordinary branches; but, as far as I have seen, they never produce tendrils, nor 

 do the branches which spring from an internode of a tendril or (as I have already 

 stated) from an accessory bud. 



If we restrict the name of tendrils to filamentary organs used exclusively 

 for climbing, those of the present plant would be excluded ; for after having done 

 their work as tendrils, they may be transformed into, and do all the work of 

 branches. 



While in this plant the highly modified tendrils may be changed again into 

 true branches, in two other plants which I have seen, the branches themselves, 

 without having suffered any modification, act as tendrils. One of these plants 

 belongs to the Dalbergiece. Many of its branches had clasped small branches of 

 a tree. These tendril branches, as they may be called, had not continued to grow 

 beyond the support; and where they touched it, most of them had thickened: 

 some showed a tendency to spiral contraction, forming a semicircle between the 

 support and the stem. The plant does not twine. I may add that another genus, 

 belonging to the same section of the Leguminosae, namely Hecastophyllum, is 

 also a branch climber. 



The second plant above referred to is a Securidaca (Polygalacese), and a 

 most powerful climber (fig. 3). Its branches often curve in a very odd and com- 

 plicated manner. Thus I saw a thin branch, which with its lateral twigs had 

 become curved like ribs into semicircles (about four inches in diameter), imitating 

 the bones of the thorax ; from the twigs sprang secondary branchlets, which were 

 very regularly curved, twisted together, and formed into a sort of network around 

 the middle hollow space. When the branches wind round a support, they thicken 

 and become more rigid, like true tendrils; but even these thickened parts may 

 bear leaves or secondary branches. In the preceding plant the branches seem 

 to be arrested in their longitudinal growth when they clasp a support; in the 

 present plant they continue to grow, and the same branch may successively catch 

 different objects. The branches which project freely from a thicket are rather 

 thin and slender: with their twigs spreading all in the same horizontal plane and 

 diminishing in length towards the extremity of the branch, and with their leaves 

 arranged in two horizontal rows, they apparently form gigantic bipinnate leaves; 



