50 NEW ZEALAND PLANTS. 
Carry out this idea a little further, and you have certain plants 
putting out long shoots, which, too weak to stand alone, lean against 
other trees for support. Go a little further still, and such long 
shoots develop certain organs which assist them to cling to the sup- 
porting tree. So, by slow degrees, modification after modification has 
been evolved, until the remarkable brotherhood of lianes or climbing- 
plants has come into existence, whose roots can enjoy the cool, rich 
soil of the forest-floor, but whose crowns dispute with the tree-tops 
Climbing-leaves of the bush-lawyer (Rubus australis), showing the midribs 
; provided with hooked prickles. 
Trans. N.Z. Inst.] [J. W. Bird del. 
for the light of heaven, and under its beneficent influence bring forth 
their flowers, ripen their fruits, and manufacture stores of food 
within their green leaves. 
Lianes, as explained in Chapter II, may be conveniently and 
naturally divided into scramblers, root-climbers, twiners, and tendril- 
climbers—names which speak for themselves. The shrub-fuchsia 
(Fuchsia Colensoi), a much more slender plant than the tree-fuchsia 
(F. excorticata), offers a transition to the scrambling habit, being 
frequently merely a shrub in the open, but in the forest at other 
