THE RUSH FOR THE SUN 81 



revolution Darwin found that another plant of similar 

 habits swept a circle sixteen feet in circumference at 

 a speed, for the tip of the shoot, of thirty-three inches 

 an hour. Such energy and such singleness of method 

 is sure to be rewarded. A straight clamber towards 

 the light might miss many uprights by a mere inch, so 

 might semicircular oscillations towards the south. 

 But our hop secures vertical advantage by systematic 

 horizontal gropings, gains the light by exploring the 

 dark, goes north in order to come south. 



A bramble-bush in the first hill-field was woven all 

 over last summer with the graceful leaves and prettily 

 coloured fruit of the mandrake. All that tapestry has 

 long since disappeared, and now the bush is greening 

 with its legitimate blackberry buds. But through the 

 heart of it is rushing up again a sheaf of bryony shoots, 

 racing neck and neck, each with its tendrils ready for 

 a cast round any support that may be worth lassoing. 

 Already there are tendrils that have caught something, 

 and others that have outlived their capacity and caught 

 nothing. Both have coiled themselves into spirals, the 

 unsuccessful ones into long corkscrew ringlets, with 

 coils all running one way, the others with a turn or 

 two to the right, then a turn or two to the left. The 

 support is thus drawn tight up to the plant, but not 

 too tight. The bryony is anchored to the bush with 

 spring cables that give and fetch when the wind shakes 

 its world, and thus it rides out the fiercest gale. Again 

 the bush and the pollard-ash above it will be festooned 

 with that exquisite pattern of vine-like leaves and 

 round berries in green and lemon and crimson. 



The bitter-sweet, also rushing up to the sun as a 

 harmless parasite, is a sheer extemporiser by compari- 

 6 



