178 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES ON 



homologous with grape berries, the former being arrested berries 

 OT Jlower-buds turned to other purposes. 



Now, there is no doubt that the Ampelopsis and vine tendrils 

 are also branches, so that we come round again to the conclusion 

 that roots and branches, though different in function, are 

 essentially the same thing, and that the vine tendril, in spite of 

 its stipules, may be more strictly interpreted as an aerial root. 

 And by a process of putting two and two together, the disks of 

 the Ampelopsis may probably be considered as arrested Jlower- 

 buds, although I do not maintain that they are so. 



We find the large group of the Cucurbitaceae also furnished 

 with tendrils. In these there is one tendril, either simple or 

 branched, on the side of the leaf, although I have observed, as an 

 exception, that Bryonia dioica and another have sometimes two 

 tendrils, one on each side of the leaf. 



Mr. Naudin considers the tendrils of cucurbits as depauperized 

 stipules, one of which has been suppressed. With due deference to 

 so great an authority as Mr. ^N'audin, I think it more reasonable to 

 look upon them as aerial roots. In support of this view I would 

 state that in the underground axilla of a horse-radish, I have 

 observed a minute long root-fibril 07i each side q/ the axillary 

 bud. In a ranunculaceous weed on the roadside, which gives off 

 stolons, as in the strawberry, I have observed at the base of each 

 leaf two roots, similar to the two ^tendrils of the exceptional case 

 of Bryonia dioica. In this weed there are at first two rootlets. 

 Afterwards the node often gives off more than two. 



If we look upon the stem of the Cucurbitaceae as a rhizome, we 

 might be justfied in considering their tendrils as so-called adven- 

 titious roots. There may have been originally two, as in Bryonia 

 exceptionally, but, functioning as tendrils, two would not be 

 needed, and in time one would sometimes be suppressed as a useless 

 encumbrance. 



In some cases the tendrils of cucurbits are all suppressed. In 

 many they are branched, the branches being verticillate. In 

 others they are irregularly disposed with reference to the leaf. 

 What might be now called the normal state is that of one tendril 

 on the side of the leaf.* The tendrils of cucurbits have no 

 stipules as in the vine tendrils. 



* See appendicular notes to this section. 



