38 
HOW PLANTS GROW. 
branch, but taper off into a thorn. Prickles , such as those on the stems of Eoses 
and Brambles, must not be confounded with thorns. These are growths from the 
bark (like hairs or bristles, only stouter), and peel off with it ; while thorns are 
connected with the wood. 
95. Tendrils, such as those of the Grape-Vine, Virginia Creeper (Fig. 72), and 
the Melon or Squash, are very slender, leafless branches, used to enable certain 
plants to climb. 
They grow out 
straight or nearly 
so until they reach 
some neighboring 
support, such as a 
stem, when the end 
hooks around it 
to secure a hold, 
and the whole ten- 
dril then shortens 
itself by coiling up 
spirally, so draw- 
ing the growing 
shoot nearer to the 
supporting object. When the Virginia Creeper climbs the side of a building, 
the face of a rock, or the smooth bark of a tree, which the tendrils cannot lay 
hold of in the usual way, their tips expand into a flat plate (as shown in Fig. 73, 
the ends of a tendril magnified), which adheres very firmly to the surface. This 
enables the plant to climb up a smooth surface by tendrils, just as the Ivy and 
Trumpet-Creeper climb by rootlets (86). 
96. Peduncles or Flower-stalks are a kind of branches, or stems, as is clear from 
their situation. They are either a continuation of the stem, as in the Lily of the 
Valley and the Chalcedonian Lily, represented on the first page ; or else they rise 
out of the axil of a leaf, as in the Morning-Glory (Fig. 4). Plainly, whatever 
comes from the axil of a leaf must be of the nature of a branch. So 
97. Bllds. that is axillary buds, are undeveloped branches, as already explained 
in paragraphs 55 to 58. 
98. The following kinds of branches are all connected with the ground in some 
way, and most of them act in such a way as to make new plants. 
