WOOD-CRAFT. 47 



flexible stems, and eventually fling themselves out- 

 side, sheeting the hedges with their pretty leaves. 

 That geologically oldest, perhaps, and most cosmo- 

 politan of living ferns, the Common Bracken {Pteris 

 aqttilina), interweaves itself; the Goose-grass or 

 " Cleavers " {Galium aparine) (well named so by the 

 common people), manages to pull itself up by means 

 presently to be described ; Honeysuckle, Clematis, 

 Tufted Vetches, Convolvulus, Black Bryony, White 

 Bryony, Ivy, etc., utilise and overpower the poor Haw- 

 thorn, and beat its robustness by their wood-craft ! 



In tropical and equatorial forests this game is 

 played even more vigorously. The Bush-ropes and 

 other climbing plants wrap round the largest of tree- 

 trunks, twist themselves in and about the arboreal 

 foliage, and eventually reach the highest points, 

 reserving their vegetative power until then, and 

 putting it forth under the most favourable circum- 

 stances as to light and heat. In the Central 

 American forests, among such successful schemers 

 may be mentioned Marcgravia tiinbellata, which 

 flattens and moulds its own stem around the trunks 

 of robuster forest -trees, puts forth root-claspers to 

 embrace them, and so raises itself, like a parvenu, 

 above those which help it. And eventually, when 

 it has reached the light above, and overtopped the 

 foliage of the tree it climbed by, it throws out 

 branches with ordinary round stems and leaves like 

 other plants — ^just as if it had not cheated, and 



