i8 SUMMER 



in the place of ropes by which youth shall climb above the 

 parents' heads. One may make protest against the wild 

 clematis that the instinct to grapple is overdone. The leaf, 

 with its innate power to twist, is so sensitive to stimulus that 

 it grips instantly whatever it touches. If it can grip nothing 

 else it grips itself. You may find hopeless knots and tangles 

 into which some leaves have become so absorbed that they 

 have ceased to perform the function of leaves. The young 

 principal shoot only is saved, and it is not always saved from 

 being dragged down instead of being helped up, by its amazing 

 rapidity of growth. When once the grip is fixed and the 

 leaf stem, or indeed the leaf itself has made a half- 

 hitch, all hope of extrication is over. Not only is the hold 

 tight and tightened daily, but when once a complete circle 

 is made the stem thickens and hardens, so that the most 

 delicate touch could never in any circumstances unwind it. 

 The stuff, so to say, has set. But in spite of its excesses 

 the clematis is perhaps the most successful of all climbers. 

 It reaches immense heights, and being perennial makes 

 good its position. It has one common, indeed almost 

 universal trick, in great perfection. The growing shoot 

 is slim and spearlike, without protuberance on this side 

 or that. As soon as it has insinuated itself through a 

 past opposition, out shoots the side leaves at right angles, 

 making relapse impossible, if there has been any tangle to 

 penetrate. 



This dodge is most necessary perhaps to the blackberry, 

 a humble and much modified climber. The blackberry 

 leaves in the sequel actually slope backwards, and being very 

 stiff, quite prevent the young shoot from slipping backward 

 through the hedge in which, as a rule, it grows. But the 

 leaf of the clematis excels in length. The barb, as it were, is 

 wider, and though its mission is not to be a barb, as in the 



