UEBER HAFT- UND NAEHRWURZELN 
BEI KLETTERPFLANZEN UND EPIPHYTEN. 
VON 
D*. F. A. F.C, WENT. 
In seinen ,Climbing Plants” behandelte Darwin auch, wenn 
zwar nur sehr kurz, die Wurzelklettern. Er gibt dort aber fol- 
gende interessante, von ihm gemachte Beobachtung an!): ,Ficus 
repens climbs up walls just like Ivy; when the young rootlets 
were made to press lightly on slips of glass, they emitted 
(and I observed this several times) after about a week’s inter- 
val, minute drops of clear fluid, not in the least milky like 
that exsuded from a wound. This fluid was slightly viscid, but 
could not be drawn out into threads; it had the remarkable 
property of not drying. One drop, about the size of half a 
pin’s head, I slightly spread out, and scattered on it some 
minute grains of sand. The slip of glass was left exposed in 
a drawer during hot and dry weather, and, if the fiuid had 
been water it would certainly have dried in one or two min- 
utes; but it remained fluid, closely surrounding each grain 
of sand, during 128 days; how much longer it would have 
remained I cannot say. Some other rootlets were left in contact 
during 23 days and then were firmly cemented to the glass. 
Hence we may conclude, that the rootlets first secrete a slightly 
viscid fluid, and that they subsequently absorb (for we have 
1) Darwin, Journal Linnean Society, Febr. 2. 1865, p. 106. 107. 
Ann. Jard. Buit. Vol. XII. j 
