NATURE'S WOODCRAFT: A CHAPTER ON STEMS 



237 





Photo by] 



FIG. 293. BLACK BRYONY (Tamus communis). 





IE. Step. 



Like the Convolvulus, the Black Bryony climbs by twining always to the left. It is the only British representative 



of the Yam family. The specimen photographed is a young plant ; in older individuals the red berries are produced 



in bunches. EUROPE, N. AFRICA. W. ARIA. 



of the towering Mora. Its topmost branch, when naked with age, or 

 dried by accident, is the favourite resort of the toucan. Many a time has 

 this singular bird felt the shot faintly strike him from the gun of the fowler 

 beneath, and owed his life to the distance betwixt them." Would that 

 some of our English song-birds, growing scarcer amongst us every year, 

 had trees as high to nest in ! 



The " Monster Cactus " which reached Kew Gardens in 1846 measured 

 nine and a half feet in circumference and weighed a ton. Eight strong 

 mules were required to draw it over the mountains of Mexico, and ten 

 men to place it in the scales at the Royal Gardens (see fig. 96). Con- 

 sidering that Cactuses are only succulent plants, these statistics are indeed 

 astonishing. 



The length attained by the fleshy stems of many Seaweeds may be 

 referred to in this connection. One species of Sea-wrack, Macrocystis 

 pyrifera, which abounds in the southern oceans between Tierra del Fuego 

 and New Zealand, though its stalk is not thicker than a pen-holder, 

 sometimes measures upwards of nine hundred feet in length ; and Lessonia, 



