280 PLANT-LIFE 





subsequent efforts to the manufacture and storage of 

 reserves in advance of the next season's demands. 



The Lesser Periwinkle (Vinca minor) has tough trail- 

 ing stems bearing evergreen leaves. It finds its niche 

 on the floors of woods, where in shade conditions it 

 competes successfully with other plants by covering the 

 site it occupies with its many-leaved trailers. Its leaves 

 are not large, but they are evergreen, and they make 

 up for deficiency in size by their quantity and lengthy 

 period of activity. Thus, the plant is able to fill its 

 niche in the shade by peculiar adaptation to the lighting 

 conditions. 



Such plants as the Dog Rose (Rosa canina, Plate 

 XL VIII.) and Bramble (Rubus) have been well classed 

 by Charles Darwin as " Scramblers," for they literally 

 scramble in the direction of the light, using other plants 

 for support with utter disregard for their requirements. 

 They hang on to their supports by means of recurved 

 hooks, produced from stems and leaves, and how 

 thoroughly they are served in this way is realized by 

 anyone who has seriously attempted to disengage either 

 of these scramblers from a hedgerow. The scrambling 

 stem of a Bramble plant may, under suitable circum- 

 stances, attain very considerable length. I recently took 

 careful measurement of a stem issuing from a plant rooted 

 on the outskirt of a wood. The site of the root was in 

 deep shade, and the stem to which I refer scrambled 

 along 10 feet of ground to a hedge, and over the hedge, 

 which was not less than 10 feet high, into bright light. 

 The total length of this stem was 50 feet. The Goose- 

 grass (Galium aparine), known to Scotsmen as " Sticky 

 Willie," is furnished with almost innumerable hooked 



