Vine Growth

Next time you draw a vine wrapping around a branch, here are a couple things to keep in mind.
Each type of vine follows different genetic rules. A bittersweet vine always winds counterclockwise as it ascends.

This large bittersweet vine was once a small spiraling tendril wrapping around a young sapling. Later the vine vaulted to a bigger tree, and kept getting thicker until it was far thicker than its original host. Finally the small host sapling died and rotted away, leaving the vine looking like a telephone cord.

This real telephone cord wraps in the opposite direction, clockwise as it ascends.

As with the telephone cord, the wisteria vine wraps clockwise as it goes up, unlike the bittersweet vine we saw earlier, which wrapped counterclockwise.



In this YouTube video of a morning glory vine, you can see the leading tendril trying to find a host as it spins counterclockwise.