176 



KNOWLEDGE. 



May, 1913. 



tropical scenery. On a smaller scale we have the 

 field-convolvulus (C. arvensis) with stem trailing 

 along wayside banks and field-borders, embellished 

 at intervals with pink and white-striped shallow 

 almond-scented cups, or often clinging to wheat and 

 barley stalks too tenaciously for any wind to unloose. 

 It is remarkable to find that so many spiral climbing 

 plants conform to the convolvulus type of leaf, all 

 of them being withywinds if not withershins. 

 The climbing polygonum or buckwheat — a 

 common and detested garden weed — and the 

 tamus or black bryony, with its glossy deep- 

 green leaves, have little in common beyond their 

 foliage, which features the convolvulus. This same 

 black-rooted bryony (Taunts communis) and the red- 

 berried bryony {Bryonia dioica) stand apart in other 

 respects than foliage, but, even more than the 

 vetches, the) - are both steadied by tendrils. The 

 climbing buckwheat certainly makes good use of its 

 small leaves to fasten it to a supporting plant. Its 

 fine, traily, stringy stem, branching out in all 

 directions, catches round stalks of corn, flowering 

 plants, and foliage, twisting them all together in 

 such a tangle that nobody could release them who 

 had not more than human patience, all being finally 

 borne down with the strain or weight. The convol- 

 vulus-like leaves are set singly at intervals, becoming 

 very small towards the top, till they look like 

 pygmean assegais. The growing tips are insinuated 

 through narrow spaces before the topmost leaves 

 open wide, whereupon the two broad lobes prevent 

 any slipping back when wind-shaken or dragged at 

 from beneath. From which it would appear that 

 some species of plants make their leaves answer the 

 purpose of tendrils. 



Transgressing its own la wand the usages of climbing 

 plants in this hemisphere, we have known the bryony 

 — both the black-rooted and the red-berried — com- 

 mence its course aright, then halt, turn right round, 

 and proceed from west to east in withershins fashion. 

 We cannot conceive how such a plant comes to 

 infringe the rule of the indigenes, but there may 

 have been an obstacle in its path or some other 

 equally good reason for its "striking out a new line." 

 In fact, the bryonies are, even more than the bind- 

 weeds, now recognised to possess some of that in- 

 explicable knowingness or sentience which brings 

 them several stages nearer to the animal kingdom. 

 Your fancy may be mesmeristic or your volition void, 

 but your fingers can hardly cheat the bryony trailer 

 out of its own perceptions exactly where a suitable 

 support lies. Its sensitive leading tip squirms about 

 here and there till it secures a suitable grip, and if, 

 later, it comes to hesitate a moment, one may be 

 sure that the unforeseen has happened, or recent 

 conditions have changed, causing danger to lurk 

 ahead. One wonders what particular sense enables 

 the hopbine to repeatedly cross a three-feet space to 



its nearest support after as many forcible dissuasions 

 by human fingers. 



When the red-berried bryony gets enmeshed on a 

 hedge one has some difficulty in determining which 

 way its individual tendency is to travel. It may be 

 hurtful to the hedge, which was planted originally to 

 keep grazing cattle within bounds, but nature-lovers 

 forgive its faults because of those wonderfully 

 beautiful vine-like leaves which have been so 

 sedulously copied by decorative wood-carvers from 

 the earliest times of Art. The convolvulus type of 

 foliage is wholly departed from, here being five 

 fantastically cut, broad, vine-like lobes instead of the 

 usual couple which terminate with tool-like point. 

 Instead of a leafhold as with the climbing weed-like 

 polygonum there are tendrils, some of which will 

 stretch out for half a foot. When once they catch 

 hold they become a corkscrew-like coil or spring 

 which allows of sufficient " play " to escape damage. 



I cannot say that I have ever seen any lonicera 

 or honeysuckle play withershins. But a man once 

 showed me a hazel walking-stick grooved out 

 spirally when still young and tender by Lonicera's 

 clinching hoop-like withywinds, which indicated this 

 plant's indebtedness to the sun as an agreeable 

 compelling-power. Here an individual plant had 

 studiously distinguished itself by an eccentricity, or 

 been compelled to fight for its own living in a novel 

 manner, by taking a wrong or retrograde turn in life 

 which led actually to fortune ! The hazel, its host, 

 is at first a sufferer, but, becoming a curiosity of 

 value by reason of the startling spiral impression, 

 gains immortality in the keeping of a collector of 

 walking-sticks, not the least of whom was our late 

 King Edward. Every conchologist knows the value 

 of a very rare variety of shell whose whorls are 

 termed sinister because they go the wrong way 

 round, and long ages ago a shell of this pattern was 

 supposed to bring luck to the finder or wearer, being 

 in this respect not inferior to the swastika symbol or 

 an}' other amulet. The sinister whorl of a shell and 

 a withywind's withershins, grooved in a stick from 

 the brake or copse, are corresponding freaks of 

 Nature. 



The wild and cultivated hopbine (see Figure 178) 

 stands botanically apart from the honeysuckle, the 

 two bryonies, and other climbing plants ; but it is 

 nevertheless a true withywind, capable of extending 

 its growth by five inches a day. Although its 

 scientific name, Hamulus liipu/us, appears to be 

 based on a tradition of its being the " willow-wolf 

 which lives in a rich damp soil," and although it is 

 maligned as being able to strangle willows twenty 

 feet or thirty feet high, we really venture to believe 

 that the specific name " lupulus," is derived from 

 lupulin, the active principle in hops. If it were a 

 withershins to any great extent, we should certainly 

 have some records from Kent. 



