Cuap. IIL. BIGNONIACES. 99 
these branched tendrils the course of the stream of 
light which entered the box. I left these tendrils 
undisturbed for above 24 hrs., and then turned the 
pot half round; but they had now lost their power of 
movement, and could not any longer avoid the light. 
When a tendril has not succeeded in clasping a 
support, either through its own revolving movement or . 
that of the shoot, or by turning towards any object 
which intercepts the light, it bends vertically down- ~ 
wards and then towards its own stem, which it seizes 
together with the supporting stick, if there be one. 
A little aid is thus given in keeping the stem secure. 
If the tendril seizes nothing, it does not contract 
spirally, but soon withers away and drops off. If it 
seizes an object, all the branches contract spirally. 
I have stated that after a tendril has come into 
contact with a stick, it bends round it in about half 
an hour; but I repeatedly observed, as in the case 
of B. speciosa and its allies, that it often again loosed 
the stick ; sometimes seizing and loosing the same stick 
three or four times. Knowing that the tendrils avoided 
the light, I gave them a glass tube blackened within, 
and a well-blackened zinc plate: the branches curled 
round the tube and abruptly bent themselves round 
the edges of the zinc plate; but they soon recoiled 
from these objects with what I can only call disgust, 
and straightened themselves. I then placed a post 
with extremely rugged bark close to a pair of tendrils ; 
twice they touched it for an hour or two, and twice 
they withdrew ; at last one of the hooked extremities 
