OR APPENDAGES OF PLANTS, 171 



firm and sturdy ones. By its means such climbers 

 often reach, in tropical forests, to the summits of 

 lofty trees, which they crown with adventitious blos- 

 soms. Tendrils or claspers when young are usually 

 put forth in a straight direction ; but they presently 

 become spiral, making several circumvolutions, by 

 which they take hold of any thing in their way, and 

 then assume a firmer texture. After accomplishing 

 a certain number of turns in one direction, some 

 tendrils have a power of twining subsequently the 

 contrary way; many of them moreover are branched 

 or compound, so that the chances of their meeting 

 with a support are multiplied. The Vine, Vitis 

 innifera, the various species of Passion-flower, and 

 the Pea or Vetch tribe afford good examples of 

 spiral tendrils. The Virginian Creeper Hedera^ or, 

 as it ought to be called, Vitis, quinquefolia, has 

 branched tendrils, whose extremities adhere to the 

 smoothest flint, like the fibres of Ivy. Gloriosa 

 mperba, f. 76, Andr. Repos. t. 129, and Flagel- 

 laria indica, have a simple spiral tendril at the end 

 of each leaf; for they belong to the Monocotyle- 

 dones, the structure of whose whole herbage is gene- 

 rally of the most simple and compendious kind. 

 The flower-stalks of Cardiospermum Halicacahum 

 bear tendrils ; but a most singular kind of tendril, 

 if it may so be called, which certainly has a right to 

 the name oi fulcrum, is found in the Annona hexa- 

 petala, Linn. SuppL 270. The flower-stalk of this 



