Vine

A vine is any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent (that is, climbing) stems, lianas, or runners.

This has been a highly successful growth form for plants such as kudzu and Japanese honeysuckle, both of which are invasive exotics in parts of North America.

Growth away from light allows the vine to reach a tree trunk, which it can then climb to brighter regions.

[6] The vine growth form may also enable plants to colonize large areas quickly, even without climbing high.

The evolution of a climbing habit has been implicated as a key innovation associated with the evolutionary success and diversification of a number of taxonomic groups of plants.

This is shown by the fact that some bines always twine clockwise, including runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and bindweed (Convolvulus species), while others twine anticlockwise, including black bryony (Dioscorea communis) and climbing honeysuckles (Lonicera species).

The contrasting rotations of bindweed and honeysuckle was the theme of the satirical song "Misalliance", written and sung by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (but the lyrics confuse the direction of twining, describing honeysuckle as right-handed and bindweed as left-handed).

[15] The term "vine" also applies to Cucurbitaceae like cucumbers where botanists refer to creeping vines; in commercial agriculture the natural tendency of coiling tendrils to attach themselves to pre-existing structures or espaliers is optimized by the installation of trellis netting.

Vines are able to grow in both deep shade and full sun due to their uniquely wide range of phenotypic plasticity.

In contrast, tendril vines usually grow on the forest floor and onto trees until they reach the surface of the canopy, suggesting that they have greater physiological plasticity.

Climbing vines can induce chemical defenses and modify their biomass allocation in response to herbivores.

In particular, the twisting vine Convolvulus arvensis increases its twining in response to herbivore-associated leaf damage, which may lead to reduced future herbivory.

Momordica charantia (bitter melon), a climbing plant
A tendril
Convolvulus vine twining around a steel fixed ladder
Boston ivy covering a chimney
L : A left-handed bine grows in an anticlockwise direction (viewed from the point of view of the plant: S-twist ).
R : A right-handed bine grows in a clockwise direction. ( Z-twist ) [ 11 ] [ 12 ]
A large Apios vine on the street in Sochi , Russia
Canary creeper trailing on a trellis.
Ficus pumila ' s vigorous wall growth
Spring growth of Virginia creeper
Scrambling habit of climbing groundsel .
Confederate jasmine with flowers
Bower vine 's showy flowers
Mandevilla trailing on trellis
Oceanblue morning glory
German ivy creeping on ground