SOME REMARKABLE WAYS OF PLANTS 159 



graceful festoons. Or you may find in the hedge a wild 

 " Clematis," — ^the " Traveller's Joy " — and again you 

 will see much the same. 



But such plants as the Bryony have extra help 

 in climbing, for they grow tendrils, delicate spirals, 

 which unwind and wind anew, and cling fast as they 

 rise. The tendrils, like stem-tips, are ever going round 

 and round, very gently, ever on the watch for a new 

 support; and when they have come across what they 

 need, they take resolute hold and refuse to let go. 



While all stem-tips circle in this manner, they do 

 not all move in the same direction. Those of the 

 Scarlet Runner and of the Bindweed circle from west 

 to east by the north ; but those of the Hop and of the 

 Honeysuckle circle from west to east by the south. It 

 is practically the same difference as when the hands of 

 a watch move forwards, or are made to move backwards. 



Why this difference should exist we cannot say; we 

 only know that so it is. And each plant keeps steadily 

 to its own manner of moving, and will not consent to go 

 the other way round, not even if it is so fastened as 

 almost to force it to change. This has been tried ; but 

 the victim rebelled, and insisted on following the mode 

 to which it was used. 



Climbing Plants generally go upwards. They do not 

 care to travel along a support laid flat on the ground. 

 Some Creeping Plants grow thus ; but a real Climber, if 

 compelled to do so, gets out of health and sickly; for 

 the life then lived is not natural to it. Mounting up- 

 ward is its true nature ; the nature of the life that is in it. 



We may safely say that the tendrils, like other parts, 

 are often, if not always, modified leaves. 



