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"'Mike'" wrote in message
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"K" wrote in message
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Derek Turner writes
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:51:39 +0100, mark wrote:

This evening I planted out 24 runner beans. As they are flopping about
like er..um ..something floppy I would like to tie them to the canes to
give them the idea.
My question is: which way do they grow, clock or anti?


mark

Like all plants they follow the light, i.e. the sun. Does that give you
any clues?

Hmm ... well, one of the wisteria species climbs anticlockwise, another
one clockwise. So does the sun go in different directions in different
places? Possibly N and S hemisphere (it's too early in the morning for me
to think this one through). And runner bean is a S American plant, so is
that N or S hemisphere?

Or to put it another way, I'm not totally convinced that twining
direction depends on the sun's movements.
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Kay

Flanders and Swann had a song

Mike


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 out 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.