176 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



just as much monopodial as in other plants. It is possible that 

 in some varieties the axillary bud may be suppressed, and, therefore, 

 the real terminal bud may have been mistaken for the axillary, and 

 the tendril for a terminal bud. 



I do not believe that the morphological position of the vine 

 tendril has been rightly interpreted. I have invariably found it 

 opposite a leaf, the stem being continued, as in other stems, by the 

 terminal bud, and the axillary bud of the leaf being always 

 present. In fact, this axillary bud is the propagating eye of the 

 vine. I have always found that each tendril, like the stem, sub- 

 divides into subordinate tendrils, each being opposed by two 

 minute stipules. Here, therefore, we have a repetition of the 

 stem, and the vine tendril might be interpreted as a branch. I 

 believe, however, that it admits of a different interpretation, which 

 I shall now endeavour to make clear. 



If the rhizome is a stem it will follow that the stem is a 

 rhizome. In rhizomes, whether of seaweeds, or ferns, or other 

 plants, we often find a leaf growing in one direction, and a root in 

 the opposite direction, and I see no. reason to come to any other 

 conclusion than that the \dne tendril is to the stem what the root 

 is to the rhizome. The two appear homologous. 



Now the stipules on the vine tendril would appear a valid 

 objection to this view. But on closer cogitation we perhaps will 

 find that this objection is a weak one, for if the underground root 

 is capable of producing buds, which can turn into branches and 

 leaves, it is of no use our objecting that the vine tendril cannot 

 be a root, because it bears stipules. Syme has told us that the 

 branches of the roots of Epijmgimi aphylhim have a feio scarious 

 scales. 



I consider the vine tendril to be an aerial root, serving the 

 purpose of attachment only, like the aerial roots of Vanda. And 

 my ^dew of stipules is that they can be, and often are, simple bud 

 scales.* Therefore, as roots develop buds, it is nothing out of the 

 way to credit them with the power of developing bud scales also, 

 more especially as in this case the stem being erect the aerial root 

 is under different conditions from what it would be if it were an 

 underground root. 



* Vide Discussion on Cotyledons and Bud Scales. 



