Chap.V. 



HOOK-CLIMBEES. 



183 



CHAPTER Y. 



Hook ane Root-Climbers. Concluding Remarks. 



n.tnts climbing by the aid of hooks, or merely scrambling over other 

 plants Eoot-climbers, adhesive matter secreted by the rootlets 

 General conclusions with respect to climbing plants, and the stages 

 of their development. 



Hook-Climbers. In niy introductory remarks, I stated 

 that, besides the two first great classes of climbing 

 plants, namely, those which twine round a support, 

 and those endowed with irritability enabling them to 

 seize hold of objects by means of their petioles or 

 tendrils, there are two other classes, hook-climbers and 

 root-climbers. Many plants, moreover, as Fritz Muller 

 has remarked,* climb or scramble up thickets in a still 

 more simple fashion, without any special aid, excepting 

 that their leading shoots are generally long and flexible.' 

 It may, however, be suspected from what follows, that 

 these shoots in some cases tend to avoid the liffht. 

 The few hook-climbers which I have observed, namely, 

 Galium aparine, Rubus australis, and some climbing 



* Journal of Linn. Soc. Vol. ix. 

 p. 348. Professor G. Jaeger has well 

 remarked ('In Sachen Darwin's, 

 insbesoudere contra Wigand,' 

 1874, p. 10G) that it is highly 

 characteristic of climbing plants to 

 produce thin, elongated, and flexi- 

 ble stems. He further remarks that 



plants growing beneath other and 

 taller species or trees, are naturally 

 those which would be developtd 

 into climbers ; and such plants, 

 from stretching towards the light, 

 and Irom not being much agitated 

 by the wind, tend to produce long, 

 thin and flexible shoots. 



