What are climbing plants?
Q: What are climbing plants?
A: Climbing plants are plants which climb up trees and other tall objects. Many of them are vines whose stems twine round trees and branches. There are also other methods of climbing that have evolved independently in several plant families.
Q: How many plant families include climbers?
A: Over 130 plant families include climbers.
Q: What is the difference between bines and vines?
A: Bines twine their stems around a support, while vines use tendrils, suckers, or other methods to climb.
Q: What is an example of a commercially important bine?
A: Hops (used in flavoring beer) are a commercially important bine.
Q: Are all climbing plants flowering plants?
A: Yes, most vines are flowering plants that can be divided into woody vines or lianas and herbaceous (nonwoody) vines.
Q: Is there an odd group of climbing plants?
A: Yes, the fern genus Lygodium, called "climbing ferns", is an odd group of climbing plants where the fronds unroll from the tip rather than the stem itself climbing up objects.
Q: How does fetterbush climb without clinging roots or tendrils?
A: The fetterbush climbs by its stem going into a crack in the bark of fibrous barked trees such as bald cypress and flattening out to grow up underneath the host tree's outer bark before sending out branches near the top of the tree.
