196 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



twining plants is the different rate of revolution in 

 different plants. In the hop, the shortest period 

 recorded for a revolution was two hours ; in the 

 bryony, two hours and a half ; in the kidney bean,. 

 five minutes less than two hours ; the w'hite con- 

 volvulus, one hour and forty minutes ; in the trumpet- 

 flower {Tccovta), six hours and a half; in Ceropegia, 

 five hours and a quarter ; in a climbing fern {Lygo- 

 deinii), five hours for one species and eight hours for 

 another ; in Lapageria rosea, eight hours and three- 

 quarters in a hot-house, and eleven hours in a green- 

 house ; in a species of hone}'suckle it was eight 

 hours ; and in an exotic {SpJicerostevia) it \\'as eighteen 

 hours and a half. 



Although these twiners are described as " those 

 which twine spirally round a support, unaided by any 

 other movement," it has been seen that they possess 

 very remarkable movements of their own, which are 

 intimately related to, and are indeed sufficient to 

 account for, their spiral twining. The same kind of 

 movement, that of rotation, or circumnutation, which 

 we have seen in operation in the young radicle of. 

 germinating seeds, in cotyledons, leaves, &c., here 

 reaches a higher de\clopmcnt, and achieves a more 

 palpable result. 



A remarkable genus of twining plants, belonging 

 to the Amaryllis family, has not yet received the 

 attention they deserve. Passing through one of the 



