1 8 Vine (Vitacecz). [No. 5 



" By the river bank he wandered, 

 Through the Muscoday, the meadow, 

 Saw the grape-vine, the Bemahgut, 

 Trailing o'er the elder-branches, 

 Filling all the air with fragrance." 



Longfellow's " Hiawatha." 



" Almighty God for the comfort of mankind ordained 

 wine ; but decreed, therewith, that it shoulde be moder- 

 ately taken, for so it is holsom & comfortable ; but when 

 measure is turned into excesse it becometh unwholsome, 

 & a poison most venemous, relaxing the sinewes, bringing 

 with it the palsie & falling sicknes : to the aged it bring- 

 eth hot fevers, frensie, & lecherie, consumeth the liver & 

 other of the inward parts : . Finally in a word to 



conclude : this excessive drinking of wine dishonoreth 

 noblemen, beggereth the poore, & more have been de- 

 stroied by surfeiting therewith than with cruell battell." — 

 Gerard's Herball. 



Tendrils are modified forms of leaf, leaf-stem, flower- 

 stem, branch, or stipule. Meehan comments interestingly 

 on their doings. Until they find a support they are in 

 constant motion. " I have demonstrated," he says, " that 

 this motion, if it remains unsatisfied, is exhausting to the 

 plant. It is a drain on its health and vigor." Darwin 

 says that generally if a tendril fails to catch anything it 

 merely gradually withers, but that in a few species, if it 

 fails, at first it slowly bends downward, then loses its 

 power of clasping, and very soon disarticulates itself and 

 drops off like a leaf in autumn. 



Some tendrils appear as though they made deliberate 

 choice. " Knowing that the tendrils avoid the light, I 

 gave them a glass tube blackened within and a well-black- 

 ened piece of zinc. They quickly curled about the tube, 

 and bent abruptly around the edge of the zinc ; but they 



