80 JBotauB 



flat disc at the tendril tip. As soon as they are fast 

 the tendril shrinks or shortens, drawing the vine to 

 the place of support. The Virginia creeper exhibits 

 this wonderful contrivance. Some stems, as the ivies, 

 send out rootlets to fasten upon the rough surface of 

 walls and to secure support. The grape vine has 

 branching tendrils, which are really altered, sup- 

 pressed branches, converted to climbing appliances. 

 An examination of tendrils will afford delightful 

 study. One variety of tendrils reaches out after 

 a stick or stem, and then wraps and curls about it, 

 ring after ring, with wonderful precision. 



Plants are divided into herbs, bushes, shrubs, trees, 

 according as the stem is soft, short, annual, or large, 

 wood}'', and enduring. The herb has a soft, usually 

 green stem, never very tall, dying to the ground each 

 year, as the marigold, lily, etc. A bush has a woody 

 stem of moderate height, and a rind thicker than 

 that of an herb ; it is perennial, as the rose, spirea, 

 currant. A shrub has a still thicker, stronger, taller, 

 more woody, rougher-skinned stem ; it is also peren- 

 nial, as the lilac, snowball, syringa. It may be from 

 ten to twenty feet high, and is thickly branched. A 

 tree is much larger in every way than the shrub. It 

 has numerous great roots, a wide spread of branches, 

 a strong bark, and lasts from thirty or forty to a 

 thousand years. 



