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Old 14-06-2003, 10:08 PM
Mary Fisher
 
Posts: n/a
Default Burning Issue: Runner Beans & Sense of Direction




"Malcolm" wrote in message
...

In article , martin
writes
On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 05:24:31 +0100, Neil Trotter
wrote:

snip

As for runner beans -- I'm not sure they'll be in season just now, even
in Northland, but maybe someone who knows about such things can tell me
if they wind around poles the *other* way (i.e. clockwise as viewed from
above) in NZ?

I'm guessing that if they do, it's somehow related to the movement of
the sun, and not much at all to do with the coriolis effect :-)
================================================ ========================


Footnote: of course the query is not confined to NZ (I just happen to
have ties to it), but any runner-bean-growing location in the southern
hemisphere.


and do they grow straight up on the equator


Cue Flanders and Swann song called 'Misalliance' on the subject.....

The fragrant Honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun
and many other creepers do the same
But some climb anticlockwise,
the Bindweed does for one,
or Convovulus, to give her proper name.
Rooted on either side a door
one of each species grew
and raced up to the window ledge above
Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew
where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled
and fell in love.

Said the right-handed Honeysuckle to the left handed Bindweed
'oh let us get married if our parents don't mind we'd
be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined we'd
live happily ever after' said the Honeysuckle to the Bindweed.

To the Honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock,
the Bindweeds, they cried, 'are inferior stock,
They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft
We twine to the right and they twine to the left'.

Said the anticlockwise Bindweed to the clockwise Honeysuckle;
'We'd better start saving
Many a mickle mac's a muckle
Then run away on a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll
take a turn for the better', said the Bindweed to the Honeysuckle.

A bee who was passing exclaimed to them then;
'I've said it before and I'll say it again
Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be,
They'll never receive any blessing from me'.
Poor little sucker, how will it learn
When it is climbing, which way to turn,
Right, Left, what a disgrace
Our it may go straight up and fall flat on its face.

Said the right-hand thread Honeysuckle to the left-hand thread Bindweed
'It seems that against us all fate has combined
Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling Columbine
thou art lost and gone forever
We shall never intertwine'.

Together they found them, the very next day
They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away
Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight
To veer to the left or to veer to the right.


That's the one. And very topical.

But it doesn't mention widdershins ...

Mary


--
Malcolm