202 CONCLUDING REMARKS. Cuar. V. - 
primordially a twiner; this then became a leaf-climber, 
the leaves being afterwards converted by degrees into 
tendrils, with the stipules greatly increased in size 
through the law of compensation.* After a time the 
tendrils lost their branches and became simple; they 
then lost their revolving-power (in which state they 
would have resembled the tendrils of the existing 
L. aphaca), and afterwards losing their prehensile 
power and becoming foliaceous would no longer be 
thus designated. In this last stage (that of the exist- 
ing L. nissolia) the former tendrils would reassume 
their original function of leaves, and the stipules which 
were recently much developed being no longer wanted, 
would decrease in size. If species become modified in 
the course of ages, as almost all naturalists now admit, 
we may conclude that D. nessolia has passed through a 
series of changes, in some degree like those here 
indicated. 
The most interesting point in the natural history of 
climbing plants is the various kinds of movement 
which they display in manifest relation to their wants. 
The most different organs—stems, branches, flower- 
peduncles, petioles, mid-ribs of the leaf and leaflets, 
and apparently aérial roots—all possess this power. 
The first action of a tendril is to place itself in a 
proper position. For instance, the tendril of Cobea 
* Moquin-Tandon (Eléments de this nature was suddenly effected ; 
Tératologie, 1841, p. 156) gives for the leaves completely dis- 
the case of a monstrous bean, in appeared and the stipules grew to 
which a case of compensation of an enormous size. 
