2 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



the same line. Afterward other irregular ellipses or ovals 

 are successively described, with their longer axes directed 

 to different points of the compass. While describing 

 such figures, the apex often travels in a zigzag line, or 

 makes small subordinate loops or triangles. In the case 

 o'f leaves the ellipses are generally narrow. 



Even the stems of seedlings before they 

 age ' have broken through the ground, as well as 

 their buried radicles, circumnutate, as far as the pressure 

 of the surrounding earth permits. In this universally 

 present movement we have the basis or groundwork for 

 the acquirement, according to the requirements of the 

 plant, of the most diversified movements. 



THE MOVEMENT OF PLANTS IN RELATION TO THEIR 

 WANTS. 



Th ntifand ^e most interesting point in the natural 



Habits of history of climbing plants is the various kinds 

 Climbing j movenien t w hich they display in manifest 

 page 202. relation to their wants. The most different 

 organs — stems, branches, flower-peduncles, petioles, mid- 

 ribs of the leaf and leaflets, and apparently aerial roots — 

 all possess this power. 



1. The first action of a tendril is to place itself in a 

 proper position. For instance, the tendril of Cobcea first 

 rises vertically up, with its branches divergent and with 

 the terminal hooks turned outward ; the young shoot at 

 the extremity of the stem is at the same time bent to one 

 side, so as to be out of the way. The young leaves of 

 clematis, on the other hand, prepare for action by tem- 

 porarily curving themselves downward, so as to serve as 

 grapnels. 



2. If a twining plant or a tendril gets by any accident 

 into an inclined position, it soon bends upward, though 



