On the Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants

This book stands second in line to his first work on plants, On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects.

Inspired by reading an 1858 short paper by his friend Asa Gray on the movements of tendrils, Darwin set up experiments to explore the development of so many kinds of climbing plants in an evolutionary context.

Darwin conducted, in his own words, "observations, founded on the examination of above a hundred widely distinct living species."

The spontaneous revolving habit of stems and tips has evolved in many plant groups in order to obtain light and/or support.

It should rather be said that plants acquire and display this power only when it is of some advantage to them; this being of comparatively rare occurrence, as they are affixed to the ground, and food is brought to them by the air and rain."