228 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



pipes which carry sap to the foliage up out of 

 sight on the roof of the forest. One wonders how 

 they have managed to climb to the tree tops, as they 

 are usually swung entirely clear of any support in 

 their lower parts. These hanging lianes simply 

 rest on the limbs fifty or sixty feet above the floor 

 of the forest. A few of them are sprawlers, as the 

 pull- and haul-back {Pisonia aculeata), and these 

 crawl and slide upward as they grow over shrub- 

 bery and the lower branches of trees. The method 

 is different with the ordinary climba-s which 

 ascend by attaching themselves to anything by 

 means of their tendrils. On some of the Florida 

 Keys and at Paradise Key in the Everglades 

 a Hippocratea {H. volubilis) is very abundant. 

 This giant tropical vine sends out a pair of 

 tendrils at each joint which tightly clasp any other 

 vine or tree up which it proceeds to climb. Often 

 the union of the support and supported is so close 

 that the two stems seem as one and it needs care- 

 ful inspection to distinguish them apart. Each 

 tendril bears three leaves at its extremity and after 

 the vine has reached the top of the tree both ten- 

 drils and leaves drop off, allowing the stem to 

 swing free. We have a Cissus and two other 



