298 TENDRILS PITCHERS. [BOOK i. 



remarkable : among these the first to be noticed is the cirrhus 

 or tendril (Capreolus and Clavicula of the old botanists.) It 

 is one of the contrivances employed by nature to support 

 plants by aid of others stronger than themselves. It was 

 included by Linnaeus among what he called fulcra ; and has 

 generally, even by very recent writers, been spoken of as a 

 peculiar organ. But, as it is manifestly in most cases a par- 

 ticular form of the petiole, I see no reason for regarding it in 

 any other light. It may, indeed, be a modification of the 

 inflorescence, as in the Vine ; but this is an exception, 

 showing, not that the cirrhus is not a modification of the 

 petiole, but that any part may become cirrhose. 



In some cases the petiole of a compound leaf is lengthened, 

 branched, and endowed with the power of twisting round any 

 small body that is near it, as in the Pea : it then becomes 

 what is called a cirrhus petiolaris. At other times, it 

 branches off on each side at its base below the lamina into a 

 twisting ramification, as in Smilax horrida ; when it is called 

 a cirrhus peduncularis. Or it passes, in the form of midrib, 

 beyond the apex of a single leaf, twisting and carrying with 

 it a portion of the parenchym, as in Gloriosa superba ; when 

 it is said to be a cirrhus foliaris. De Candolle also refers to 

 tendrils the acuminate, or rather caudate, divisions of the 

 corolla of Strophanthus, under the name of cirrhi corollares. 



As another modification of the petiole, I am disposed to 

 consider with Link (Elem. 202,) the singular form of leaf in 

 Sarracenia and Nepenthes (fiy. 58.), which has been called a 

 pitcher (Ascidium, Vasculum) . This consists of a fistular green 

 body, occupying the place, and performing the functions of a 

 leaf, and closed at its extremity by a lid, termed the opercu- 

 lum. The pitcher, or fistular part, is the petiole, and the 

 operculum the blade of a leaf in an extraordinary state of 

 transformation. This is found, by a comparison of Nepen- 

 thes and Sarracenia with Dionsea muscipula ; in that plant 

 the leaf consists of a broad- winged petiole, articulated with a 

 collapsing blade, the margins of which are pectinate and 

 inflexed. We may either suppose the broad- winged petiole 

 to collapse, and that its margins, when they meet, cohere, in 



