previous day this same shoot revolved in an opposite direction. The
shoots do not twine spirally, but climb excellently by the aid of
their young and sensitive petioles. These petioles, when lightly
rubbed, move after a considerable interval of time, and subsequently
become straight again. A loop of thread weighing 0.125th of a grain
caused them to bend.

Maurandia semperflorens.--This freely growing species climbs exactly
like the last, by the aid of its sensitive petioles. A young
internode made two circles, each in 1 hr. 46 mm.; so that it moved
almost twice as rapidly as the last species. The internodes are not
in the least sensitive to a touch or pressure. I mention this
because they are sensitive in a closely allied genus, namely,
Lophospermum. The present species is unique in one respect. Mohl
asserts (p. 45) that "the flower-peduncles, as well as the petioles,
wind like tendrils;" but he classes as tendrils such objects as the
spiral flower-stalks of the Vallisneria. This remark, and the fact
of the flower-peduncles being decidedly flexuous, led me carefully to
examine them. They never act as true tendrils; I repeatedly placed
thin sticks in contact with young and old peduncles, and I allowed
nine vigorous plants to grow through an entangled mass of branches;
but in no one instance did they bend round any object. It is indeed
in the highest degree improbable that this should occur, for they are
generally developed on branches which have already securely clasped a
support by the petioles of their leaves; and when borne on a free
depending branch, they are not produced by the terminal portion of
the internode which alone has the power of revolving; so that they
could be brought only by accident into contact with any neighbouring
object. Nevertheless (and this is the remarkable fact) the flower-
peduncles, whilst young, exhibit feeble revolving powers, and are