WOOD-CRAFT. 53 



{Solanum dtilcamara), some Asclepiads, etc. ; these 

 appear to be just adopting the plan. Others cHmb 

 only in the summer time, like our climbing Buck- 

 wheat {Polygonum cotivolvidus). Some species twine 

 one way and some another — with the sun and 

 against it, according to the popular method of defin- 

 ing it. A few, as Hibbertia^ twine both ways, and so, 

 as Darwin says, this plant is admirably adapted for 

 rambling in and out through the Australian scrub. 



It is interesting to notice how, when the stem of 

 a plant does not twine, or only acquires the disposi- 

 tion and power to do so after sprouting the first two 

 or three joints, the branches will commence the 

 habit much later on. Only the lateral branches 

 twine in Tamils elephantipes, and in Periploca Grceca 

 the habit is confined to the uppermost shoots. A 

 large number of species climb because the foot-stalks 

 of their leaves are able to twine. This is par- 

 ticularly noticeable in that greenest and loveliest of 

 the climbing plants which, in the summer months, 

 festoon our green lanes, the Traveller's-joy {Clematis 

 vitalba), whose bare and withered stems, even in 

 winter, may still be seen retaining the hold they 

 gained months before. A rarer and much weaker 

 plant, only to be met with in thickets, is the climb- 

 ing Fumitory {Corydalis claviculatd), which uses both 

 tendrils and leaves to climb by. Its near relatives, 

 the true Fumitories, are backward in developing their 

 climbing powers, although one species, Fiimaria 



