NATURE'S WOODCRAFT: A CHAPTER ON STEMS 



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many different species of slender creepers. You thought at your first 

 glance among the tree-stems that you were looking through open air ; 

 you find that you are looking through a labyrinth of wire-rigging, and 

 must use the cutlass right and left at every five steps" (Kingsley). Some 

 of these climbers are " twisted in strands like cables ; others have thick 

 stems contorted in every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the 

 tree-trunks, or forming gigantic loops and coils among the larger branches ; 

 others, again, are of zig-zag shape, or indented, like the steps of a 

 staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height " (Bates). 



Herb disputes with herb, shrub with shrub, and tree with tree, for 

 every cubic foot of air and soil. It is one grand struggle for existence.* 

 Nor do the weakest always go to the wall. By employing artifice the 

 slender clinging plant 

 sometimes destroys the 

 strong -limbed self-sup- 

 porting giant; the un- 

 fittest rather than the 

 fittest thus surviving in 

 the struggle. This is 

 well illustrated in the 

 Marcgravias, and par- 

 ticularly in Marcgravia 

 umbellata, which abounds 

 in the woods of Jamaica, 

 and which assumes such 

 a variety of forms in the 

 process of growth that 

 it is often- mistaken for 

 different plants. At its 

 first appearance it is 

 but a poor, thin, weak- 

 stemmed climber, bear- 

 ing a few heart-shaped 

 leaves ; but it is also 

 provided with aerial 

 roots, and by means of 

 these it attaches itself to 

 the sturdy trunk of any 

 tree that is conveniently 

 contiguous, and mounts 



* An Indian Grass Pani- 

 cum arborescens whose stem 



is no thicker than a goose-quill, FlG 2 85. BLACKTHORN (Prunus spinosa). 



rises as high as the tallest trees ^ ^ ^ ^ to be modified b _ ancheg by their bearing the 



in this Contest lor light and air. flowers. The leaves have not yet appeared. EUROPE. 



