Crap. V. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 205 
Finally, climbing plants are sufficiently numerous to 
form a conspicuous feature in the vegetable kingdom, 
more especially in tropical forests. America, which so 
abounds with arboreal animals, as Mr. Bates remarks, 
likewise abounds according to Mohl and Palm with 
climbing plants; and of the tendril-bearing plants 
examined by me, the highest developed kinds are 
natives of this grand continent, namely, the several 
species of Bignonia, Eccremocarpus, Cobea, and Ampe- 
lops’s. But even in the thickets of our temperate 
regions the number of climbing species and individuals 
is considerable, as will be found by counting them. 
They belong to many and widely different orders. To 
gain some rude idea of their distribution in the vegetable 
series, I marked, from the lists given by Mohl and Palm 
(adding a few myself, and a competent botanist, no 
doubt, could have added many more), all those families 
in Lindley’s ‘Vegetable Kingdom’ which include 
twiners, leaf-climbers, or tendril-bearers. Lindley 
divides Phanerogamic plants into fifty-nine Alliances ; 
of these, no less than thirty-five include climbing plants 
of the above kinds, hook and root-climbers being ex- 
cluded. To these a few Cryptogamic plants must be 
added. When we reflect on the wide separation of these 
plants in the series, and when we know that in some of 
the largest, well-defined orders, such as the Composite, 
Rubiacez, Scrophulariacee, Liliacee, &c., species in 
only two or three genera have the power of climbing, 
the conclusion is forced on our minds that the capacity of 
revolving, on which most climbers depend, is inherent, 
