THE PI.ANT WORI.D 203 



Lianes. 



By William Whitman Bailey. 



By the beautiful, euphonious name " lyiane," the peoples of Spanish 

 origin in South America and elsewhere designate certain plants of peculiar 

 habit. They may belong to different families ; what unites them under 

 a common designation is their manner of growth. 



To understand this one must bear in mind the tremendous competi- 

 tion that takes place in a tropical forest. Every plant is put on its mettle 

 to accomplish its utmost. It is met on every hand by opposition — un- 

 ceasing, relentless. 



Now, one prime object of every plant is to obtain for itself the requisite 

 amount of light, air, and moisture. To do this it exerts every effort and 

 resorts to every artifice. Sometimes the struggle, even on one of our own 

 temperate waste-places, reminds one of a football tangle. Each individual 

 attempts to emerge from the crowd at the most favorable place. Some 

 wriggle around the ends, some push through by main force, while others 

 twine around their fellows or even climb upon their shoulders. Woe to 

 the individual that falls ; it is crowded to death in the contest ! 



The lianes or twiners are, by botanists, distinguished from climbers. 

 The latter are plants that possess tendrils or other prehensile organs by 

 means of which they lay hold of a support. Good instances are the grape- 

 vine, climbing by shoot tendrils ; the clematis, by means of its petioles ; 

 the pea, by leaf tendrils; the green-brier, by its stipules, and the poison 

 ivy and English ivy, by clinging roots. It would be interesting to know 

 what determined evolution along these varying lines. 



The Roxbury wax-work (^Celastriis scandeiis), the L<ima bean, and the 

 hop and morning-glory, are all twiners. It has been observed of these 

 that they all twine in a direction definite for each kind of plant. The 

 morning-glory and the hop, say, reverse their direction, one moving with 

 the hands of a clock, the other oppositely. Force will not, for any length 

 of time, prevent this purpose. 



The continuous heat and steaming moisture of the tropics stimulate 

 the most vigorous and emulous growth. While the liane habit is com- 

 paratively infrequent with us, — for we do not include twining herbs in 

 the term, — there it becomes extremely common and bestows upon the 

 jungles a characteristic and striking appearance. 



Kerner von Marilaun, one of the most graphic of recent botanical 

 writers, and whose noble work has done so much to enrich our science, 

 thus writes. His picture is too fine to be retouched by any lesser 

 artist : 



