THE GREEN WORLD 235 



ing plant securely enough to the hedge. The feelers, 

 seizing an object on either side alternately of the stem, 

 fix the plant firmly. They pull, as it were, against 

 each other. 



Wild clematis, scrambling everywhere, anchors itself 

 somewhat as does red bryony, but has no distinct 

 feeler; round the object seized it winds one of the 

 stems which carry its leaves. These stems serve as a 

 separate tentacle, and are very tough and strong 

 having a far greater weight and mass to bear than the 

 red bryony, they need be so. One of these clematis 

 grappling stems will coil as many as five times round 

 some object, usually another clematis stem. So tough 

 and wiry are they, that in May or June the dead and 

 dry grappling stems and the four or five coils of last 

 May's growth cannot always be broken easily by a hard 

 finger pull. Strange that matter which in its rushing 

 growth was so largely composed of water should have 

 to-day, when all life has long died out of it, such 

 strength, such a wiry, resolute grip ! 



All these hedge climbers suggest to me the idea of 

 an intelligence of the body. They suggest it as much 

 as the little round-leaved sundew, drosera, which we 

 found in Blackmoor Forest with yellow asphodel. But 

 their methods of climbing often differ widely. Black 

 bryony is python among plants : it coils its cruel body 

 round and round the victim. So does woodbine. The 

 red bryony, as we see, steadies itself in quite another 

 manner a fine-pointed, twisting feeler on one side, a 



