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 39 tendrils for climbing DHJanzen100350.jpg high resolution
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| But a vine can climb by twining more than its stem. Here, one leaf has evolved into being a tendril for climbing. Istead of being a flat solar panel, it is a long thin tendril that bends around whatever it touches (yes, it is a tactile plant), as is occurring in the upper part of the image. As it curls around the support, it dries and then dies, becoming in effect a non-elastic fibrous rope, holding the vine to the support (as will be shortly happening with the tendril in the lower part of the image). Such evolutionary modification of a solar panel into a rope has occurred many times in the evolution of vines, and probably has its derivation in the leaf itself being something that catches on other plants as a plant bends one way or another, providing some anchoring (which is then further modified through selection). | ||
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