234 
TRAILING PLANTS, AND THEIR CULTURE. 
tribe of plants of a certain sort is wished to be grown or studied, the inquirer finds 
very little to assist or guide him in existing publications. 
With the exception, perhaps, of climbers, distinctions in classification relative 
to habitude are seldom recognised. We therefore here desire to bring before our 
readers a group of plants which, though scarcely known to exist as a separate class, 
comprises a good many species, and includes objects of a very interesting character. 
Trailing plants are those whose stems spread horizontally and along the surface 
of the ground, only the points of the shoots ever curving upwards. They are also 
frequently called creepers. Many species that now rank as climbers might be 
appropriately ranged under this head ; for although, by attention, they are induced 
to ascend, and to climb a greater or lesser height, they would, if left unheeded, 
creep along the earth, and lie completely prostrate. It is obvious, then, that 
numbers of climbers might be brought beneath the same treatment as trailers ; but 
we would restrict the latter term to those dwarfer species which can be most fitly 
managed as real trailers. 
From their very humble nature, and their disposition to keep close to the 
ground, they appear to have been placed likewise in a low position as respects the 
amount of attention awarded them. Nevertheless, they have almost as strong 
claims to notice as climbers ; and we have more than once striven to show that 
these last are among the most pleasing things in the whole vegetable world. They 
have the same slenderness and gracefulness of growth ; and if these are not 
displayed so effectively, we hope to be able to make good the statement, that this 
is owing to their unfavourable and unsuitable treatment, and not to anything 
which they themselves lack. 
They comprehend a considerable variety of plants ; some being shrubby and 
some herbaceous, while a few are merely annual ; and many being tender enough 
to require a greenhouse, others half-hardy, and the rest capable of thriving in an 
entirely unprotected place. 
They are also adapted for various uses. In a common border or an ordinary 
pot, they 'make a pretty appearance. On rock-work, or spreading over sloping 
banks, or planted in the hollow of a rough piece of rock, and hanging over its edges, 
or mantling its surface, they are extremely interesting. Suspended in pots to the 
roof of a greenhouse, or the ceiling of a drawing-room in front of the window, they 
will have a delightful effect ; and be similarly attractive when placed on pedestals, 
in the like situations, where their drooping branches may surround the pot, and be 
fully exposed to view. Planted along the margin of a walk in a conservatory or 
stove, or on the top of the wall surrounding a pit, or other elevation in a similar 
structure, or to form a kind of natural undergrowth in a stove which has beds in it 
for containing tropical plants and for growing them in a jungle-like manner, they 
are still more desirable. Another excellent office which they would fulfil is to compose 
an edging to flower-borders, or a broad formal band of flowers, within an edging of 
turf, or a spreading and lively covering to the ground beneath the plantations. 
