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Vegetative

 16-Vines

[FMP-field: image]
A vine is a woody or herbaceous plant with a long, slender, more or less flexible stem that trails on the ground or climbs over other plants or obstacles by various means (twining, tendrils, adventitious roots). The stem of the plant is often so weak that it cannot support itself.

Here are two examples of vines:
• the left photo shows morning glories (Ipomoea sp.) climbing along poles and a tree.
Plants from this family, Convolvulaceae, climb by twining.

• the right photo shows poison-ivy (Rhus radicans ) climbing on a tree. It is a woody vine with clinging adventitious roots.

Some other examples of vines:

• Plants from the grape family (Vitis vinifera ) are woody vines. They climb along their support using tendrils (modified stems).
• Cucurbitaceae: herbaceous vines with tendrils (modified stems)
• Vicia sp. (Fabaceae) is an herbaceous vine with leaves partly modified into tendrils.

Both photos by K. R. Robertson, that of the morning glories taken in Cambridge, Massachusetts and that poison ivy taken at Robert Allerton Park, Monticello, Illinois.
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