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Show 348 PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. rapid ascent to the tops of lofty trees, the passage from tree to tree, and even the crossing of streams by whole herds or troops of gregarious animals, are all greatly facilitated by these twining plants or Lianes. In the South of Europe and in North America, Hops from among the Urticere, and the species of Vitis from among the Ampelidere, belong to the class of twining climbers, and between the tropics we find climbing Grasses or Graminere. We have seen, in the plains of Bogota, in the pass of Quindiu, in the Andes, and in the Quinaproducing forests of Loxa, a Bambusacea allied to Nastus, our Chusquea scandens, twine round massive and lofty trunks of trees adorned at the same time with flowering Orchidere. The Bambusa scandens (Tjankorreh), which Blume found in Java, belongs probably either to the genus Nastus or to that of Chusquea, the Carrizo of the Spanish settlers. Twining plants appear to me to be entirely absent in the Pine-woods of Mexico; but in New Zealand, besides the Ripogonum parviflorum of Robert Brown (a climber belonging to the Smilacere which renders the forests almost impenetrable), the sweetsmelling Freycinetia Banksii, which belongs to the Pandanere, twines round a gigantic Podocarpus 220 English feet high, the P. dacryoides (Rich), called in the native language Kakikatea. (Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, 1843, vol. i. p. 426.) With climbing Graminere and Pandanere are contrasted by their beautiful and many-colored blossoms the l?assifloras (among which, however, we even found an arborescent, self-supporting species, Passiflora glauca, growing in the Andes of Popayan, at an elevation of 9840 French (10,487 English) feet; the Bignoniacere, Mutisias, Alstromerias, Urvillere, and Aristolochias. Among the latter, our Aristolochia cordata has a crimson-colored flower of 17 English inches diameter ! "flores gigantei, pueris mitrre instar inservientes." Many of these twining plants have a peculiar physiognomy and appearance, produced by the square shape of their stems, by flattenings not caused by any external pressure, and by riband-like wavings to and fro. Cross sections of Bignonias and Banisterias show cruciform or mosaic figures produced by the mutual pressure and interpenetration of the stems which twine around each other. (See very accu- |