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Updated: June 20, 2025
If the eye was turned from the world of foliage above, to the ground beneath, it was attracted by the extreme elegance of the leaves of the ferns and mimosae. The latter, in some parts, covered the surface with a brushwood only a few inches high. In walking across these thick beds of mimosae, a broad track was marked by the change of shade, produced by the drooping of their sensitive petioles.
They swallow an enormous quantity of earth, out of which they extract any digestible matter which it may contain; but to this subject I must recur. They also consume a large number of half-decayed leaves of all kinds, excepting a few which have an unpleasant taste or are too tough for them; likewise petioles, peduncles, and decayed flowers.
Petioles which have clasped any object ultimately become rather thicker and more cylindrical. On lightly rubbing several petioles with a twig, they became perceptibly curved in 1 hr. 15 m., and subsequently straightened themselves. A stick gently placed in the angle between two sub-petioles excited them to move, and was almost clasped in 9 hrs.
That these petioles had been dragged into the burrows for plugging them up, and not for food, was manifest, as neither end, as far as I could see, had been gnawed.
The tendrils apparently curve themselves spontaneously to the same side with the petioles; but from various causes, it was difficult to observe the movement of either the tendrils or petioles, in this and the two following species. The tendrils are so closely similar in all respects to those of B. unguis, that one description will suffice. Bignonia unguis.
The petioles, when coming into contact with a stick, take either a complete or half a turn round it, and ultimately increase much in thickness. They do not possess the power of spontaneously revolving. Lophospermum scandens, var. purpureum. Some long, moderately thin internodes made four revolutions at an average rate of 3 hrs. 15 m.
I took a twig, thinner than the petiole itself, and with it lightly rubbed several petioles four times up and down; these in 1 hr. 45 m. became slightly curled; the curvature increased during some hours and then began to decrease, but after 25 hrs. from the time of rubbing a vestige of the curvature remained.
The young internodes of the Lophospermum as well as the petioles are sensitive to a touch, and by their combined movement seize an object. The flower-peduncles of the Maurandia semperflorens revolve spontaneously and are sensitive to a touch, yet are not used for climbing.
The movement of the whole shoot by the wind and by its rapid growth, would probably be almost equally efficient as these spontaneous movements, in bringing the petioles into contact with surrounding objects. The leaves are of large size. Each bears three pairs of lateral leaflets and a terminal one, all supported on rather long sub- petioles.
Those from Clematis montana, which grew over a verandah, were dragged early in January in large numbers into the burrows on an adjoining gravel- walk, lawn, and flower-bed. These petioles vary from 2.5 to 4.5 inches in length, are rigid and of nearly uniform thickness, except close to the base where they thicken rather abruptly, being here about twice as thick as in any other part.
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