156 CHAPTER XXI. 



These are the Clematis Flammula, the Smilax, and 

 the Madder. If we include the lovely Atragene, from 

 the mountains, it will make a fourth. Vinca, the 

 Periwinkle, can scarcely be called a climber. 



The Flammula is a much smaller plant than its 

 sister, the Vitalba. It straggles under the Olive trees, 

 wherever the peasants have not cleared it away ; and 

 growing, as it does, in the open, where there is little 

 to take hold of, it rises but a short distance from the 

 ground. Yet it will run some yards if placed upon a 

 railing. The white Jasmin-like flower is more orna- 

 mental than that of the Vitalba. Flammula is evergreen. 



Smilax (Fig. 61) clambers over each hedge and 

 thicket, and covers every rock and ruin with its prickly 

 zigzag stems, holding by a thousand little hooks, and 

 letting fall ruby clusters of berries, and festoons of 

 sweetly scented flowers. Kingsley speculates how 

 this plant can have crossed the Atlantic in some past 

 geological epoch; for one or two species only are 

 indigenous in Europe. The home of the Sarsaparillas 

 is in the forests of the Amazon. Some of the tri- 

 butaries of the mighty stream are said to be coloured 

 by the sap of these plants. In the Miocene period 

 Europe possessed as many as eight species of Smilax. 

 Lyell ("Elements of Geology") figures a couple of 

 these fossil leaves. They differ but little from those of 

 the common Riviera plant. Smilax is dioecious and 

 evergreen. This is one of Lindley's dictyogens, that 

 is, Endogens with net-veined leaves. The tendrils 

 are stipular. Darwin, in his Essay on " Climbing 

 Plants," says that Smilax is remarkable tor possessing 

 both tendrils and recurved spines. 



The Madder (Rnbia] grows with Smilax every- 



