If a plant can lean on something else, does it really need to invest so much in its roots for support? Could resources usually used for roots be redirected to stems and leaves? In a new paper, Tomasz Wyka and colleagues...
Climbing monocots can develop into large bodied plants despite being confined by primary growth. In a recent study published in AoB PLANTS, Hesse et al. measured surprisingly high stem biomechanical properties (in...
Climbing plants and deep shade in rainforests The climbing habit allows vines to reach well-lit canopy areas but most of them have to survive in the shade for at least part of their life cycle. Valladares et al. show...