HOME PLANTS AND THEIR WAYS. 11 



they are sure to turn up in the brightest, sunniest spot 

 they could have chosen had their eyes been wide open and 

 their proceedings above ground. 



M. Scheie de Vere. 



TWINING PLANTS. 



1. Climbing plants are, first of all, divided roughly 

 into those which twine and those which do not twine ; 

 twiners are represented by the hop and the honeysuckle, 

 and all those plants which climb up a stick by winding 

 spirally round it. Those which are not twiners — that is, 

 which do not wind spirally round a stick — are such as sup- 

 port themselves by seizing hold of any neighboring object 

 with various kinds of grasping organs ; these may be simple 

 books, or adhering roots, or they may be elaborate and sen- 

 sitive tendrils, which seize hold of a stick with a rapidity 

 more like the action of an animal than of a plant. I wish 

 now to insist on the importance of distinguishing between 

 these two methods of climbing, in one of which the plant 

 ascends a support by traveling spirally round it ; in the 

 other, fixes on to the support by seizing it at one place, and 

 continuing to seize it higher and higher up as its stem in- 

 creases in length. 



2. I have heard the curator of a foreign botanic garden 

 bitterly complain of his gardeners that they never could 

 learn the difference between these two classes of climbing- 

 plants, and that they would only give a few bare sticks to 

 same tendril-bearing plant, expecting it to twine up them 

 like a hop, while the plant really wanted a twiggy branch, 

 up which it might creep, seizing a twig with each of its 

 delicate tendrils, as it climbed higher and higher. These 

 two kinds of climbers — twiners and non-twiners — may be 

 seen growing up their appropriate supports in any kitchen- 



