Vines

Vines - we know what they are, but what makes a vine a vine, and how are they unique?

In some places, the word “vine” is only used to refer to grapevines. But kiwifruit grows on vines. Pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers, peas, and pole beans also grow on vines. Or do they?

Melon and grapes (Daria Shevtsova) Public Domain

Types of vines

Climbing plants use a variety of methods to reach the sun. They can be climbing or trailing woody-stemmed or herbaceous plants. In general, we call them all vines. Stems tend to be very long and often lack the supportive tissue needed for upright growth. This allows plants to grow upward without the same investment of energy and resources used by trees and other self-supporting plants.

Vining has evolved independently in several plant families, using different climbing methods:

• hops and bindweed twine their stems around a support; these are also known as bines
• Clematis use twining petioles, or leaf stems
• climbing fetterbush (Pieris phillyreifolia) takes advantage of the crevices in bark to climb
• climbing lang-lang (Artabotrys hexapetalus) uses a hook, while similar plants use thorns
• grapevines, melons, and squash use specialized tendrils
• ivies (Hedera) grow as ground covers, but use adventitious roots to climb walls and trees
• Virginia creeper uses tendrils fitted with adhesive pads

Climbing lang-lang hook (Vinayaraj) CC BY-SA 3.0

Purple pole beans with tendrils

Pumpkin tendril

Vining behavior
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In some cases, vines grow away from sunlight in a behavior known as skototropism. This may sound counterintuitive, but it works well for plants growing on the shady side of a tree. The vine reaches for the shade, finds the tree, and starts moving up the trunk to sunlight.

Other plants grow as shrubs unless some sort of support is available. Bittersweet and poison ivy are two examples of shrubs that convert to vines if they come into contact with a tree, fence, or other support.

One distinct group of ferns (Lygodium) have fronds that continue growing until they come into contact with a support. The midrib, or rachis, then wraps around the support and pulls the plant upward. These fronds can reach nearly 40’ in length.

Climbing fern encapsulating a tree (James H. Miller, USDA Forest Service) CC BY 3.0

To the purists, grapes grow on vines, all other woody climbers are lianas, and our pole beans, peas, and cucurbits are herbaceous vines.

Now you know.