156 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



by cuttings ; and what they do artificially is often followed by 

 Nature, as in blackberries, periwinkles, laurel-boughs, &c, when- 

 ever they reach and rest upon moist ground. Figs, such as the 

 banyan, send down aerial roots, which strike into the soil and 

 thence act as stems for support, but as roots for supplying 

 nutriment. This use might be similated in vines when of great 

 extent — viz., by either encouraging aerial roots to reach the 

 ground, or by bending a branch to the soil and making it strike 

 root in it. It would thus aid the extremities of the vine, as has, 

 indeed, been done with such admirable effect lately in the long 

 Gros Colmar House at Chiswick (fig. 34). 



Fig. 3-4.— Vine Branch Bent and Struck. (Journal of Ilorticulture.y 



Another use of a stem, if weak, is the climbing up other 

 plants so as to reach the light and air above. Plants do this ha 

 many ways and by different organs — e.g., by a spirally climbing 

 stem (hop), by conversion of branches into tendrils (vine and 

 Virginia creeper), &c. That it is not impossible for even a- root 

 to do this, Nature gives us the exception in Dissochceta T just to 

 prove the rule ; for the rootlets of this plant can become sensitive 



