TENDRILS 



Polygonum, Convolvulus, Honeysuckle, and Elephant's Foot, 

 move in the opposite way from right to left, or " widder- 

 shins." But there is nothing very important in this dis- 

 tinction, for the Bittersweet may be found twining in either 

 direction, and in some plants part of a stem may be twining 

 one way and the other in the opposite direction. 



It is in the tropics, and especially in the rank, dark, 

 moisture-laden atmosphere of the coast jungle forests, that 

 these twiners attain their greatest development. 



They show the most extraordinary variety. Sometimes 

 a twiner hangs in elegant festoons from branch to branch, 

 forming a convenient suspension bridge for monkeys. Some- 

 times four or five are wound round one another or twisted 

 together, so that they look like some gigantic cable. In 

 other cases they are knotted, looped, tangled, and twisted in 

 the most inextricable manner. 



Some creepers are flat, like green ribbons or broad 

 bands. In others the dense mass of old, thick creepers and 

 twiners round some sturdy trunk becomes so thick and so 

 fused together that when the trunk dies the lattice-like 

 arrangement of these creepers may keep them upright 

 although the original supporting trunk is quite rotten and 

 decayed away. 



More usually, a tree will become unhealthy because its 

 branches are overladen with the dense foliage and flowers of 

 heavy lianes, and because both trunk and branches are so 

 strangled in the embrace of great creepers that thfy cannot 

 expand and develop in the proper way. Then a storm will 

 overthrow the dead giant of the forest, and these creepers, 

 entangled with all the surrounding trees, will produce ruin 

 and destruction all around. 



A regular duty of the foresters in India is to cut the stems 



318 



