TENDRILS IS/ 
other in that, so students of vegetable anatomy 
or morphology soon discover. 
It is soon perfectly plain that the stem is a 
modified root. For instance, plants have been 
taken up from the sod and replaced in the ground 
upsidedown, the roots subsequently becoming 
stems, and bearing leaves, and the buried leafy 
stems assuming the functions of roots. Leaves 
are mere modified branches, and the flowers modi- 
fied leaves. Pistils and stamens in flowers are 
modified petals, or rather petals are modified sta- 
mens, the " doubling " of flowers representing the 
being thus accomplished, while the petals again 
are mere changed leaves. A neighbor of mine 
has a bush bearing green roses all leaves. In 
the w r ater-lily you will find it difficult to determine 
just where the stamen ends and the petals begin, 
so gradual is the blending. In the peony the 
same is true, and carried still further in the merg- 
ing of petals and calyx into the approximate 
leaves. 
And so it is with tendrils. In certain plants 
the point of the leaf, through ages of " natural 
selection," has gradually been prolonged into a 
slender arm, which clasps the branches of trees, 
and enables the plant thus endowed to climb 
higher to sun and sky, and thus to thrive more 
vigorously than its less fortunate brothers. The 
plant so advantageously equipped transmits its 
