160 GREAT BINDWEED. 



beautiful economy of the vegetable world, 

 may discern by this simple token, that the 

 convolvulus is designed for places open to 

 the wind or to grow beneath the shade of 

 trees. She is endowed, too, with an in- 

 stinctive motion, by which she is enabled 

 to ob^date many local inconveniences; to 

 rise from out her lowly or thickly tangled 

 place of growth, by twining round the stems 

 of neighbouring shrubs or trees. This fa- 

 culty she possesses in common with the red- 

 berried bryony, which often wanders over 

 stony banks, and forms a beautiful drapery 

 of lively green, with the hop, and lady's- 

 seal, and others equally aspiring ; but while 

 in several species the voluble stems twine 

 around their neighbour plants, from east 

 to west, the spiral stems of the convolvulus 

 tm'n from west to south-west. Such com- 

 passes of Nature's making, have proved un- 

 erring guides to travellers when journeying 



