Note u — BOOK X.

In Hederâ, sui culi & rami hinc inde claviculos, quasi radiculas emittunt, quæ parietibus, vel occurrentibus arboribus veluti digitis firmantur, & in altum suspenduntur. Hujusmodi radiculæ subrotundæ sunt, & pilis cooperiuntur: & quad mirum est, glutinosum fundunt humorem, seu Terebinthinam, quâ arcte lapidibus nectuntur & agglutinantur.——Non minori industriâ Natura utitur in Vite Canadensi, &c. The admirable and curious Make of whose Tendrels and their Feet, see in the illustrious Author, Malpig. de Capreolis, &c. p. 48.

Claspers are of a compound Nature, between that of a Root and a Trunk. Their Use is sometimes for Support only; as in the Claspers of Vines, Briony, &c. whose Branches being long, slender and fragile, would fall by their own Weight, and that of their Fruit; but these Claspers taking hold of any Thing that is at Hand: Which they do by a natural Circumvolution which they have; (those of Briony have a retrograde Motion about every third Circle, in the Form of a double Clasp; so that if they miss one Way, they may catch the other.) Sometimes the Use of Claspers is also for a Supply, as in the Trunk Roots of Ivy; which being a Plant that mounts very high, and being of a closer and more compact Substance than that of Vines, the Sap would not be sufficiently supply’d to the upper Sprouts, unless these assisted the Mother Root; but these serve also for Support too. Sometimes also they serve for Stabiliment, Propagation and Shade; for the first of these serve the Claspers of Cucumers; for the second, those, or rather the Trunk-Roots of Chamomil; and for all three the Trunk-Roots of Strawberries. Harris Lex. Tech. in verb. Claspers.