THE 



MOVEMENTS AND HABITS 



OP 



CLIMBma PLANTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



TwiifiNG Plants. 



Introductory remarks — Description of the twining of the Hop— Torsion 

 of the stems — Nature of the revolving movement, and manner of 

 ascent — Stems not irritable — Bate of revolution in various plants — 

 Thickness of the support round which plants can twine — Species 

 which revolve in an anomalous manner. 



I WAS led to this subject by an interesting, but short 

 paper by Professor Asa Gray on the movements of the 

 tendrils of some Cucurbitaceous plants.* My obser- 

 vations were more than half completed before I learnt 

 that the surprising phenomenon of the spontaneous 

 revolutions of the stems and tendrils of climbing 

 plants had been long ago observed by Palm and by 

 Hugo von llohljt and had subsequently been the 

 subject of two memoirs by Dutrochet.J Nevertheless, 



• ' Proc. Amer. Acad, of Arts pflanzen,' 1827. Palm's Treatise 



and Sciences,' vol. iv. Aug. 12, was published only a few weeks 



1858, p. 98. before Mohl's. See also ' The Ve- 



t Ludwig H. Palm, ' Ueber das getable Cell' (translnted by Hen- 



Winden der Pflanzen;' Hugo von frey), by H. von Mohl, p. 147 to 



Mohl, 'Ueber den Bau und das enH. 



Wiuden dor Kanken und Sohling- X " Des Mouvemonts revolutifrt 



