20 LETTER XXVII. 



prised at hearing that the Vine has some relationship 

 with the Gooseberry tribe. This I now proceed to 

 explain to you. 



The common Vine, a native of the South of Asia, 

 is the t}-pe of the Vine Tribe (Plate XXVII. 2.). 

 It has, as you know, very large lobed leaves, not at all 

 unlike those of a Currant magnified, and its flowers 

 grow in clusters, which however are not racemes, but 

 panicles, that is to say, branched racemes (jig. 1.). 

 The stem too is not that of a bush, but long and weak, 

 and requires the support of other trees, to avail itself 

 of which it is supplied with tendrils. Here let me 

 pause to tell you what a tendril is ; by its name you 

 would suppose it some special kind of organ formed 

 expressly for the purpose of helping the Vine to raise 

 itself amonof the forests it naturallv inhabits, and to 

 ascend from the shady thickets where it is born, to 

 the free light and air that are necessary for its ex- 

 istence. Not at all ; this is not the plan of Nature. 

 Plants are furnished with certain general parts, such as 

 leaves, flowers, &c., and when any particular and un- 

 usual office is to be performed, some one of these parts 

 is specially altered in order to meet the exigency. Thus 

 in Combretum the stem is enabled to rise among other 

 bushes by the soft and yielding stalks of its leaves 

 being changed into stiff" inflexible hooks ; in the Sweet 

 Pea the same office is performed by the principal 

 leaf-stalk, which lengthens, branches, and twists itself 

 round bushes and the branches of smaller shrubs. In 

 some plants indeed this office is actually performed by 



