58 APPENDAGES TO PLANTS. 



stem, and branches, of plants ; they are imbricated upon the 

 calyces of many of the compound flowers, often green, hut 

 sometimes colored; We have seen in buds how important are 

 the scales in protecting the embryo plant during the winter. 

 Scale-like calyces surround the flowers of grasses under the 

 name of glumes. Scales envelop and sustain the stamens and 

 fruit of the pine, oak, chestnut, &c. 



/'. Tendrils (Fig. 67). A leaf-bud is sometimes Fig. 67. 

 developed as a slender, spiral or twisted branch. In 

 the vine the tendrils are considered as the termina- 

 tions of separate axes, or transformed terminal huds. 

 By means of tendrils weak stems attach themselves 

 to other bodies for support ; they usually rise from 

 the branches, in some cases from the leaf, and rare- 

 ly from the leaf-stalk or flower-stalk. Tendrils are 

 very important and characteristic appendages to 

 many plants. In the trumpet-flower and ivy they 

 serve for roots, planting themselves into the bark 

 of trees, or in the w^alls of buildings. In the cu- 

 cumber and some other plants they serve both for 

 sustenance and shade. Many of the papilipnaceous, or pea- 

 blossom plants, have twining tendrils, which wind to the right, 

 and back again. Among vegetables which have tendrils, has 

 been discovered that property which some have called the 

 inst/lnctive intelligence of plants. A poetical botanist repre- 

 sents the tendrils of the gourd and cucumber, as " creeping 

 away in disgust from the fatty fibers of the neighboring 

 olive." It has been ascertained by experiments, that the 

 tendrils of the vine, and some other plants, recede from the 

 light, and seek opake bodies. The fact with respect to leaves 

 is directly the reverse of this. 



Some plants creep by their tendrils to a very great bight, even to the tops of 

 the loftiest trees, and seem to cease ascending, only because they can find nothing 

 higher to climb. One of our most beautiful climbing plants is the clematis virgini- 

 fill, or virgin's bower, which has flowers of a brilliant whiteness. Its pericai-ps, 

 richly fringed, are very conspicuous in autumn, hanging in festoons from the 

 branches of trees, by the sides of brooks and rivers. 



g. Pubescence includes the down, hairs, wooliness or silki- 

 ness of plants. The pubescence of plants varies in different 

 soils, and with difterent modes of cultivation. The species in 

 some genera of plants are distinguished by the direction of the 

 hairs. The microscope is often necessary in determining with 

 precision the existence and direction of the pubescence. It has 

 been suggested that these appendages may be for similar pur- 



/. Tendrils—^. Pabeaeenoe. 



