"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 2 Nov 2013 12:54:50 -0000, Janet wrote:

In article ,
says...

In article , times says...

I've been told that hops will twine in different directions as they
climb
upwards according to which hemispehere in which they grow.

Oh.. I thought it was , the way water swirls round as it reaches the
plughole.

I'm in the Southern Hemisphere and my hops twine clockwise around
supports.
Every single one of my stems is growing clockwise with not one counter
clockwise grower.

Has anyone in the Northern Hemisphere noticed which way hops twine
where
they live?

No, but I'll go out and look at mine in a minute. Then I'll have to
check the plughole..

Janet

Hops climb from right to left.

Plughole, water goes down anticlockwise.

Janet

The direction that climbers twine is controlled by their genetics.
Some, e.g. hops, climb from right to left, but the majority, e.g.
beans and bindweed, climb from left to right*. Nothing to do with
which hemisphere they grow in, or the direction of the sun's travel
across the sky, as many seem to think.
* http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictiona...Twining+Plants


Thank you. Working off your cite as a base, I've since found out that this
way of twining is called dextrorse and twining in the other direction is
called sinistrorse.

(And Janet, you will no doubt realise that I'm now going to spend too much
time watching which way down the various domestic plugholes the water
drains. As if Spring chores weren't keeping me busy enough at this time of
year.........) ;-))