JULY 165 



from left to right ; five followed the sun and ascended from 

 right to left ; and four revolved and twined first in one 

 direction and then reversed their course. . . . Another plant 

 in the same family, Scyphanthus elegans, habitually twines in 

 the same manner. I raised many plants of it, and the stems 

 all took one turn, occasionally two or even three turns, in 

 one direction, and then, ascending for a short space straight, 

 reversed their course, and took one or two turns in an 

 opposite direction. . . . Had I not seen this case, I should 

 have thought its occurrence most improbable.' 1 



I am now able to add a fourth anomalous twiner, 

 which, however, was not known to botanists in Darwin's 

 day. Everybody knows the common aconite, monks- 

 hood or wolfsbane (Aconitum napellus), which rears 

 its spikes of blue flowers in June on stiff stems two 

 or three feet high. Twenty years ago, or thereby, a 

 new species was discovered in China, which, growing 

 naturally amid thick scrub and dense woodland, had 

 to struggle for light and air by sending up stems to 

 a height of eight or ten feet. Being unable to give 

 these stems, which die back to the ground every year, 

 enough substance to stand erect, it had recourse to 

 twining, and winds up the steins of shrubs and trees. 

 Contrary to the all but universal habit of twiners, this 

 plant revolves indifferently with the sun or against it. 

 In a specimen growing not many yards from where I 

 am sitting, the first two turns of the stem are from 

 right to left, with the sun ; the next five are from left 

 to right ; then follows an upright internode, after which 

 come two turns from right to left, and the spiral 

 finishes with one turn from left to right at the top 



1 Climbing Plants, p. 34. 



