ROOT TENDRILS: LIANAS 303 



The Lianas. — The term liana was used originally to 

 denote the twining plants of the tropical rain forests. 

 Schimper extended it to cover all plants, which climb by 

 any means, belonging to any part of the world ; it could 

 not be denied to our native honeysuckle or hop. Yet this 

 " plant guild," as Schimper aptly terms such a biological 

 group, reaches its most magnificent state in the tropics, just 

 as does the guild of epiphytes. 



Haberlandt (1893) writes, " The wealth of species of 

 lianas in the tropical woods is astonishingly great. While 

 in central Europe only a few wood climbers occur, such as 

 the ivy, the honeysuckle, the wall vine, and the number of 

 herbaceous forms can scarcely amount to much over a 

 hundred, the number in the tropics has been reckoned at 

 2000 and more, of which most show woody stems. Climbing 

 plants occur in the most different divisions of the plant 

 kingdom. Certain families are marked out by peculiar 

 richness in cHmbing species, thus the Sapindaceae, Malpi- 

 ghiaceae, Menispermaceae, Bignoniaceae, and Leguminosae." 



Wallace, in his " Tropical Nature " (1878), gives a vivid 

 picture : " Next to the trees themselves the most con- 

 spicuous and remarkable feature of the tropical forests is 

 the profusion of woody creepers and climbers that every- 

 where meet the eye. They twist around the slender stems, 

 they droop down pendent from the branches, they stretch 

 tightly from tree to tree, they hang looped in huge festoons 

 from bough to bough, they twist in great serpentine coils 

 or lie entangled in masses on the ground. Some are slender, 

 smooth, and root-like ; others are rugged or knotted ; often 

 they twine in veritable cables ; some are flat like ribbons, 

 others are curiously waved and indented. . . . They pass 

 overhead from tree to tree, they stretch in tight cordage like 

 the rigging of a ship from the top of one tree to the base of 

 another, and the upper regions of the forest often seem full 

 of them. ... In the shade of the forest they rarely or 

 never flower, and seldom even produce foliage, but when 

 they have reached the summit of the trees that support 

 them they expand under the genial influence of light and 



