Climbing plant
Climbing plants are plants which climb up trees and other tall objects. Many of them are vines whose stems twine round trees and branches. There are quite a number of other methods of climbing.
The climbing habit has evolved many times.[1] It is a key innovation which has been very successful.[2] Over 130 plant families include climbers.[3] Vine species may represent more than 40% of species diversity in tropical forests.[4][5]
Investigation showed that in most cases the climbing species were more diverse (had more species) than their non–climbing sister groups.[6]
It has evolved independently in several plant families, using many different climbing methods:[7]
- twining their stems around a support (e.g., morning glories, Ipomoea species).
- by clinging roots (e.g., ivy, Hedera species)
- with twining petioles (e.g., Clematis species)
- using tendrils, which may be specialized shoots (Vitaceae), leaves (Bignoniaceae), or even inflorescences (Passiflora)
- using tendrils which have adhesive pads at the end. The pads attach themselves quite strongly to the support, (Parthenocissus)
- using thorns (e.g. climbing rose) or other hooked structures, such as hooked branches (e.g. Artabotrys hexapetalus)
The climbing fetterbush (Pieris phillyreifolia) has a strange habit. It is a woody shrub-vine which climbs without clinging roots, tendrils, or thorns. Its stem goes into a crack in the bark of fibrous barked trees (such as bald cypress). The stem flattens and grows up the tree underneath the host tree's outer bark. The fetterbush then sends out branches that emerge near the top of the tree.[8]
Most vines are flowering plants. These may be divided into woody vines or lianas, such as wisteria, kiwifruit, and common ivy, and herbaceous (nonwoody) vines, such as morning glory.
One odd group of climbing plants is the fern genus Lygodium, called "climbing ferns".[9] The stem does not climb, but rather the fronds (leaves) do. The fronds unroll from the tip, and theoretically never stop growing; they can form thickets as they unroll over other plants, rock faces, and fences.
Examples
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- Bougainvillea
- Calabash
- Campsis
- Chayote
- Clematis
- Common ivy
- Cucumber
- Cyclamen
- Grape
- Honeysuckle
- Hydrangea
- Kudzu
- Luffa
- Lygodium
- Morning glory
- Nepenthes
- Parthenocissus
- Passionfruit
- Poison ivy
- Solanum
- Sweet pea
- Virginia creeper
- Vitis
- Wild grape
- Wisteria
References
- ↑ Darwin, Charles 1880. The power of movement in plants. London: Murray.
- ↑ A "key innovation" is a trait which allows a clade to exploit a previously unused or under-used resource. Simpson G.G. 1953 The major features of evolution. New York: Columbia University Press.
- ↑ Gentry A.H. 1991 The distribution and evolution of climbing plants. In The biology of vines (eds F.E. Putz & H A. Mooney), pp. 3–49. Cambridge University Press.
- ↑ Schnitzer S.A. & Bongers F. 2002 The ecology of lianas and their role in forests. Trends Ecol. Evol. 17, 223–230.
- ↑ Phillips O.L. et al 2002. Increasing dominance of large lianas in Amazonian forests. Nature 418, 770–774.
- ↑ Gianoli, Ernesto 2004. Evolution of a climbing habit promotes diversification in flowering plants. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 271 (1552) 2011-2015. [1]
- ↑ Francis E. Putz. "Vine Ecology". Retrieved 2012-03-01.
- ↑ Alan Weakley Flora of the Southern and Mid-Atlantic States (2010) p661
- ↑ "Japanese climbing fern". Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants. Retrieved 17 July 2013.