Some General Properties of Climbing Plants

The following are features that have evolved repeatedly for the climbing lifeform to be successful:

1. Growth of shoots is often extremely rapid.
2. Searcher shoots have circumnutation (daily clockwise or counterclockwise sweeping of the young shoots) and thigmotropism (rapid growth response to contact of a structure).
3. Long internodes are produced for very rapid elongation; these are often sensitive to contact with any support or solid object.
• Tetrastigma voinierianum
4. Commonly there is a long delay in enlargement of leaves until the stem or cylindrical axis becomes wrapped around a support.
• example 1
• example 2
• example 3
5. Vines and lianas produce relatively narrow stems versus leaf area, less than a shrub or tree with the same leaf area.
6. Woody stems are very flexible to permit bending, twisting, and coiling. They are fairly strong if pulling on two ends but have very little strength when compressed.
7. If the supporting tree fails, then entire plant comes down also; however, these climbers often have a great ability to survive and resprout.
8. Stem flexibility is normally credited to the design of the woody stem, that often has patches of soft tissue alternating with the harder tissues, and soft tissue gets crushed when twisted but harder tissue remains functioning.
• fluted stem of a rain forest liana
• a "monkey ladder" of Bauhinia
• anomalous stem structure of Passiflora
• anomalous stem structure of an unidentified liana
• anomalous stem structure of another unidentified liana
9. Vines and lianas have exceptionally wide vessels (conduits or capillary-like tubes) to carry large volumes of water up the stem. Vines have some of the widest water-conducting tubes in plants.

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