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Hooker that at Kew the Ruscus androgynus has ascended a column 9 inches in diameter; and although a Wistaria grown by me in a small pot tried in vain for weeks to get round a post between 5 and 6 inches in thickness, yet at Kew a plant ascended a trunk above 6 inches in diameter. The tropical twiners, on the other hand, can ascend thicker trees; I hear from Drs.

But in ascending the series from simple twiners to leaf-climbers, an important quality is added, namely sensitiveness to a touch, by which means the foot-stalks of the leaves or flowers, or these modified and converted into tendrils, are excited to bend round and clasp the touching object.

Many plants, which are not twiners, become in some degree twisted round their own axes; but this occurs so much more generally and strongly with twining-plants than with other plants, that there must be some connexion between the capacity for twining and axial twisting.

The few hook- climbers which I have observed, namely, Galium aparine, Rubus australis, and some climbing Roses, exhibit no spontaneous revolving movement. If they had possessed this power, and had been capable of twining, they would have been placed in the class of Twiners; for some twiners are furnished with spines or hooks, which aid them in their ascent.

It is, however, probable, from reasons which I have assigned in my memoir, that this will have occurred only with plants which had already acquired the power of revolving, and had thus become twiners.

But these sub-divisions graduate into each other, as we shall see under Corydalis and the Gloriosa lily. Palm and Mohl class these plants with those which bear tendrils; but as a leaf is generally a defined object, the present classification, though artificial, has at least some advantages. Leaf-climbers are, moreover, intermediate in many respects between twiners and tendril-bearers.

The belief that twiners have a natural tendency to grow spirally, probably arose from their assuming a spiral form when wound round a support, and from the extremity, even whilst remaining free, sometimes assuming this form.

For instance, the Hop, which is a twiner, has reflexed hooks as large as those of the Galium; some other twiners have stiff reflexed hairs; and Dipladenia has a circle of blunt spines at the bases of its leaves.

Within tall and dense tropical forests, twining plants would probably succeed better than most kinds of tendril-bearers; but the majority of twiners, at least in our temperate regions, from the nature of their revolving movement, cannot ascend thick trunks, whereas this can be affected by tendril-bearers if the trunks are branched or bear twigs, and by some species if the bark is rugged.

That this saving of the stem is really an advantage to climbing plants, I infer from the species that still twine but are aided by clasping petioles or tendrils, generally making more open spires than those made by simple twiners. Moreover, the plants thus aided, after taking one or two turns in one direction, generally ascend for a space straight, and then reverse the direction of their spire.