Creeper  

“A bare, leafless creeper was flowered with the ears of a delinquent guardsman…. Some of the salver-like blossoms bore palpitating hearts, and certain smaller blossoms were centered with eyes…”--The Garden of Adompha (1938) by Clark Ashton Smith

"Creepers bear distinct evidence as to manifestation of will in plants; for, when they find no support near enough for their tendrils to cling to, they invariably direct their growth towards the shadiest place, or even towards a piece of dark-coloured paper, wherever it may be placed; whereas they avoid glass, on account of its glitter. In the "Philosophical Transactions" of 1812, Th. Andrew Knight relates some very pleasing experiments on this subject (especially with ampelopsis quinquefolia,)[252] although he strives hard to explain the matter mechanically, and will not admit that it is a manifestation of will. I appeal to his experiments, not to the conclusions he draws from them. A good test might be, to plant several free creepers in a [286]circle round a tree-trunk and to observe whether they all crept towards the trunk centripetally. On the 6th Nov. 1843, Dutrochet read a treatise on this subject in the "Acad. de Sciences" called "Sur les Mouvements Révolutifs spontanés chez les Végétaux," which, notwithstanding its great length, is well worth reading, and is published among the "Comptes rendus des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences" for Nov. 1843. [...] What Treviranus adduces is to the same effect:[253] "In parnassia palustris and in ruta graveolens, the stamina incline one after the other, in saxifraga tridactylites in pairs, towards the stigma, and erect themselves again in the same order."—Shortly before however, we read in Treviranus with reference to this subject: "Of all apparently voluntary movements of plants, the direction of their boughs and of the upper surface of their leaves towards the light and towards moist heat, and the twining [287]movements of creepers round their supports, are the most universal. In this last phenomenon especially there is something which resembles animal movements. While growing, creepers, it is true, if left to themselves, describe circles with their tips and by this means reach an object near at hand. But it is no merely mechanical cause that induces them to adapt their growth to the form of the object they have thus reached. The cuscuta does not twine round every kind of support: for instance, limbs of animals, dead vegetable matter, metals and inorganic substances are not used for this purpose, but only living plants, and not even all kinds—not mosses, for instance—only those from which it can extract nourishment by its papillæ; and these attract it from a considerable distance."[254] The following special observation, communicated to the "Farmer's Magazine," and reproduced by the "Times" (13th July 1848) under the title "Vegetable Instinct," is however still more to the point: "If a basin of water be placed within six inches of a young pumpkin-stalk, or of a stem of the large garden pea, no matter on what side, the stalk will approach the basin during the night and it will be found next morning with one of its leaves floating on the water. This experiment may be renewed every night till the plant begins to fructify.—Even if its position be [288]changed every day, a stick fixed upright within six inches of a young convolvulus is sure to be found by the plant. If, after having wound itself for a certain distance round the stick, it is unwound and wound round again in the opposite direction, it will return to its original position or lose its life in the endeavour to do so. Nevertheless, if two such plants grow close to one another without having any stick near enough for them to cling to it, one of them will change the direction of its winding and they will twine round each other. Duhamel placed some Italian beans in a cylinder filled with moist earth; after a little while they began to germinate and naturally sent their plumula upwards in the direction of the light and their radicula downwards into the mould. After a few days the cylinder was turned round to the extent of a quarter of its circumference and the same process was repeated until it had been turned completely round. The beans were then removed from the earth, when it was found that both plumula and radicula had twisted at each turn that had been given, in order to adapt themselves to it, the one endeavouring to rise perpendicularly, the other to descend, so that they had formed a complete spiral. Yet, notwithstanding this natural tendency to descend, when the soil below is too dry, roots will grow upwards in order to reach any moist substance which may be lying higher than themselves."--On the Will in Nature (1836) by Arthur Schopenhauer