Download Growth types – Climbing plants

Growth types – Climbing plants
Horticulturally, a vine is a trailing or climbing
plant. It can be herbaceous or woody.
Botanically, herbaceous climbers are called
vines and woody climbers are called lianas
(sometimes liane).
Pea (Pisum) is a herbaceous vine.
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Honeysuckle (Lonicera) is
a woody vine (liana).
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Climbing plants are found in over
100 different plant families –
mostly dicots.
There is an advantage to the
climbing plant that puts less
resources into its structure and
more into active growth.
Climbing also provides greater
access to light compared to plants
that live on the canopy floor.
English ivy (Hedera helix)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
The support plant used by climbing plants can suffer from being smothered
by aggressive climbers or strangled (girdled) by twining climbers.
Smothering
vine
Girdling
vine
Clockvine (Thunbergia) covering vegetation in Hawaii.
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Honeysuckle (Lonicera)
girdling a woody tree.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Dodder takes even more resources from the
host plant it climbs. Dodder is a parasitic vine
that penetrates the host’s stem with
haustorial roots. Dodder growth is dependent
on nutrients taken from the host plant.
Dodder
(Cuscuta)
Haustorial
roots
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Climbing plants usually produce long stems that are often vigorous and fast
growing. Left unattended they can cover plants and manmade structures very
quickly. This has led to wonderful common names such as “mile-a–minute plant”.
Burr cucumber (Sycios)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Aggressive climbing plants are some of the worst exotic invasive, non-native
plants. One of the worst is kudzu. It has earned its nickname as “the vine that
ate the south”, because of how rapidly it covers plants and structures in the
southeastern United States.
Kudzu (Pueraria lobata)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
When a support is not available, vines will
trail along the ground often producing
adventitious roots on the stem that root
into the soil.
Vines can also root in one area and colonize
areas without soil such as rock outcroppings
where there is no competition for sunlight.
Winter creeper (Euonymus fortunei )
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English ivy (Hedera helix)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tropical woody vines are always
referred to as a liana.
Bauhinia
They are vigorous growers, climbing
to reach available sunlight.
Bauhinia
Tropical lianas can form large woody stems that are often flattened and twisted.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Most vines are flowering plants, but
there are a few ferns that are vines.
Lygodium japonicum
Lygodium palmatum
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Dicranopteris is a tropical fern that
climbs by scrambling over adjacent
vegetation.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Selaginella are also among the few non-
flowering plants that climb. It scrambles
over rocks and competing vegetation by
producing long arching stems.
Selaginella wildenovii
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Vines climb and attach to supports in
a number of ways including
active and passive mechanisms:
Active mechanisms
Twining stems
Tendrils
Adventitious roots
Passive mechanisms
Spines or thorns
Sprawling or rambling
Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Twining stems
Twining stems have no special morphological
adaptations for climbing. They simply coil
their stems around a support.
Morning glory (Ipomoea)
Hops (Humulus)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Twining stems
Plants of a particular species will usually twine in the same
direction – either clockwise or counter clockwise.
Counter
clockwise
Clockwise
Wisteria
Bean (Phaseolus)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Twining stems
Many plants with twining stems “sense”
their supports and actively twine around them.
This process is referred to as thigmotropism.
Silver vine
(Actinidia polygama)
Hops (Humulus)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Twining stems
In other climbing plants, the
stems twine around structures but
are less responsive to the “touch”
of the structure.
Bowiea is a good example of this
growth where the twining habit is
less obvious.
The highly branched stems tend to
drape over and around the support
structure as the plant grows and
twines.
Bowiea
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils
Tendrils are clasping structures used to
support climbing plants. They can be
derived from modified:
Stems
Leaves
Leaf Parts
Inflorescences
Grape ivy (Cissus )
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified stems
Cucumber produces coiled tendrils that
are modified stems that curl around an
attachment to support the main stem.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified stems
Each end of a passionflower tendril curls
and tightens in opposite directions
drawing the stem closer to the support.
Counter clockwise
Clockwise
Passionflower (Passiflora)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified stems
Virginia creeper produces a branched tendril
ending in a specialized disc that cements the
tendril to a solid support. After attachment,
the tendril tightens its coils to bring the
stem closer to the support.
Virginia creeper
(Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified leaves
Gloriosa is an example of a modified leaf
where the tip functions as a tendril to
attach to supports.
Gloriosa superba
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified leaves
In a similar fashion, the leaf tip of
the tropical pitcher plant produces
extended growth that functions as
a tendril. Ultimately the tip
becomes the modified pitcher.
Tendril clasping a support
to support the pitcher.
Tendril
Tendril
Pitcher
Pitcher
Pitcher
Tropical pitcher plant (Nepenthes)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified compound leaves
In sweet pea, the terminal leaflets of the
compound leaf are converted to tendrils.
Tendril leaflets
Photosynthetic
leaflet pair
Stipules
Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified compound leaves
In some Clematis, the petiole or rachis portion of
the compound leaf functions as the clasping tendril.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified inflorescence
The flowering stem can also be modified to function as tendrils.
Flowers
Flowers
Clasping
flower
stem
Clasping
flower
stem
Ampelopsis
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Tendrils - Modified inflorescence
In grape (Vitis), a tendril is associated
with the inflorescence that will eventually
provide support for the fruit cluster.
Clasping
tendril
Flowers
Tendril on a grape
inflorescence.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Adventitious roots
Vines may also use adventitious roots that
form along the stem to attach to a support.
Poison ivy (Rhus toxicodendron)
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Climbing hydrangea
(Hydrangea anomala petiolaris)
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Below are three examples of vines that climb using adventitious roots.
Each is in a diverse family. Developing an ecological adaptation in different
family groups is an example of convergent evolution.
Dischidia
Arrowhead vine (Syngonium)
Araceae
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Apocynaceae
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Selenicereus
Cactaceae
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Adventitious roots
Adventurous roots in vanilla are
interesting because they can either cling
or wrap around the support depending on
the size of the plant it is climbing.
Vanilla
(Vanillum )
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Passive climbing mechanisms
A second way plants climb are through
passive mechanisms. These include:
Spines or thorns
Tendril
Sprawling or rambling
Spine
Cissus quadrangulata
actually displays both
an active climbing
system (tendrils) and
a passive system using
spines along the stem.
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Cissus
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Spines or thorns
Elephant’s foot (Dioscorea macrostachya)
produces a spine on stems emerging from
the basal caudex. The spine helps to grab
nearby rocks or plants to aid in the vines
initial climbing. Later, the stems twine as
they climb over nearby neighboring plants.
Spine
Spine
Caudex
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Spines or thorns
Asparagus falcatus is another scrambling
vine that uses spines as a climbing support.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Spines or thorns
Pereskia aculeata is an
unusual cactus that
produces true broad
leaf foliage.
It is a scrambling vine
that uses claw-like
spines to climb.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Spines or thorns
Bougainvillea is a good example of a
scrambling vine the uses thorns emerging
from the leaf axil to gain a foothold as it
scrambles over supports.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Scrambling and rambling
Plants considered to be scrambling or rambling
are shrubs rather than vines. Climbing roses are
a good example. They produce long arching
branches that tend to lay over adjacent plants.
Thorns (actually prickles) aid in scrambling, but
plants need tying to adhere to a vertical support.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Scrambling and rambling
Raspberries and blackberries (Rubus) are also scrambling plants. Again, the stem
prickles aid in the scrambling habit, but do not attach the stem to a support.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Scrambling and rambling
Winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum)
is an example of a rambling shrub. It
has no specialized climbing organs, but
the arching stems spread around and
through adjacent plants. The botanical
term for climbing without specialized
organs is called scandent.
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Growth types – Climbing plants
Scrambling and rambling
Allamanda is often commercially sold as a vine, but it is actually
a rambling scandent shrub.
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