CLIMBING THE HEDGEROW 15 



the tiny flowers of the goose-grass, and note this wealth of 

 green over the back of the hedgerow we know that summer is 

 really come. Few plants add more to that luxuriance of green 

 which distinguishes summer from spring. But these climbing 

 binds spring to summer and enjoy a progress which shows no 

 division. A more sudden emergence of a new season is 

 presented by that prince of climbers the white bryony. It has 

 no rival in the English hedge, either in speed of growth or in 

 perfection of device. Botanically it is in a class by itself, as 

 its colour and form may well suggest. The time to watch it 

 is in a wind on some loose hedgerow. On the tight, clipped 

 hedges which are almost walls, this bryony suddenly pops its 

 head out from the top, growing like Alice when she bit the 

 tall side of the mushroom ; and it looks almost as much agley 

 as Alice, in the picture in which she appears to be mostly 

 neck. It has climbed through the fence with its prehensile 

 fingers, sailor-like, but is quite at a loss in its new position 

 with a cut surface below and nothing to cling hold of above 

 or to the side. Its grappling tools now pull it down instead 

 of up; and its attraction upwards, an attraction felt by all 

 plants, even in some degree by ground ivy, is a vain instinct. 

 Its crooked leaves, glaucous and soft, its green and grey 

 flowers and spiral shoots make a very lovely fringe along the 

 top of such a hedge ; and later the berries look as if they had 

 been placed there in patterns by some artificial aid. But the 

 real place for the white bryony is in a loose and freely grown 

 hedge. Here, as you watch it daily, it might almost be taken 

 for an animal, so conscious the movements seem. Just like 

 a finger, the lip of the tendril hooks over any twig or leaf. 

 Almost while you watch the grip is tightened, and the com- 

 plete hitch made. By the next morning what one may call 

 the spiral instinct, which is implicit in the growth of nearly 

 all such plants, begins to express itself. The tendril 



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