How do climbing plants grow in the rainforest?

While vines are found all over the world, over 90% of species are found in the tropics. Climbing plants are some of the most obvious aspects of the rainforest; indeed their existence helps define ‘tropical rainforest’. In some classification systems in Australia, certain rainforests are known as ‘vine forests’.

It is not uncommon to see a large number of both species and individuals of climbing plants crowded on the one tree. In some areas, there may be almost as many climber species or individuals as there are trees.

Once secure, the lianas may develop large woody stems that are, to use a jungle cliché, “as big as a man’s thigh”. There is a record of one liana being 60cm in diameter. The ‘rattan palms’ of Asia and Australia develop the longest stems of any plant in the world, with records of stems over 500 feet. Barring collapse, some of these woody climbers may be as long-lived as many of the trees of the forest.

Climbers in the rainforest create some interesting patterns and formations. Many of these can be explained by simple biology. When lianas seem to hang in the air like an Indian rope trick, they create the question of how they climbed up through empty space. The answer of course is that they didn’t; when younger, these climbers grew up trees or through a canopy which has since disappeared through death and/or collapse, leaving the climber hanging. Some of these climbers hang in a pleasing spiral patterns. These can be called ‘ghost branches’, as when the climber was younger it grew around a branch or tree that has since disappeared; but the climber still retains its spiral growth pattern.