206 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



transformed into filaments, which are used wholly 

 for climbing. In other words, a tendril may be a 

 leaf so modified that it is reduced to the midrib 

 and a few lateral branches, with none of the functions 

 of leaves, but with a new and special function con- 

 temporaneous with the modification, viz., that of 

 enabling the plant to climb and maintaining it in 

 that position. But a tendril may also be a modifi- 

 cation of the flower-stalk, or of some other organ. 

 It matters not, in so far as the present inquiry is 

 concerned, what organs are so modified ; in fact, 

 botanists themselves do not seem to be entirely 

 agreed on this point. 



Very few plants with tendrils possess the power 

 of climbing up an erect stick, but most of them 

 exhibit rotation in the growing points, performing 

 revolutions not unlike in character to those of twiners, 

 and in like manner in different directions. This 

 movement, though similar in its action, has a different 

 purpose. In twiners the oscillation is evidently in 

 search of some object around which to entwine; in 

 tendril-bearers in order to bring the tendrils in con- 

 tact with some support. The tendrils themselves 

 also rotate in many species ; in some the tendrils, 

 internodes, and petioles, move in harmony together. 

 In Cobcea scandens, a well-known climber in common 

 cultivation, the tendrils are ten or eleven inches in 

 length, and revolve rapidly and vigorously. Three 



