65 % 2 CONSERVATIVE ORGANS. [LECT. XJ. 



confess our ignorance of the utility of this de- 

 scription of armature in the vegetable economy. 

 Man, however, has ingeniously taken advantage 

 of its existence for his peculiar benefit; and 

 many of those spiny and prickly shrubs, which 

 originally opposed his progress in penetrating to 

 the depths of the primeval forests, are now trained 

 as useful and ornamental fences around those 

 portions of the soil which the arm of Cultiva- 

 tion has wrested from the dominion of Nature. 



v. PROPS, Fulcra. Under this term, Linnaeus 

 and several other phytological writers have com- 

 prehended a variety of vegetable appendages, 

 which afford no prop or support to the plant *. I 

 confine its application to those organs by which 

 climbing and weak flexible stems attach them- 

 selves to one another, to firmer plants, and to 

 other objects in their vicinity, for support. By 

 these means many plants, which would remain 

 prostrate upon the earth, elevate themselves to the 

 summits of the highest trees; and, in tropical 

 countries, where vegetation revels in all the lux- 

 uriance of its powers, the Lianas, as these plants 

 are termed, hanging down in festoons adorned 

 with blossoms, form the richest garniture of the 

 forests. There are four kinds of vegetable props, 

 the tendril, the claw, the hook, and the bladder. 



* " Fulcra adminicula plantae sunt, pro commodiore sus- 

 44 tentatione ; numerantur hodie vii. Stipula, Bractea, Spina, 

 Aculeus, Cirrhus, Glandula, Pilus." Phil. Bet. 84. 



