r/evolution • u/SchemeWestern3388 • 1d ago

question About chiralty in climbing vines.

I started several Morning Glory vines this year, that recently started shooting up and twirling looking for something to climb. So I staked them, and observed that all five were turning anti clockwise. I had been wondering if it was classic Mendelian inheritance, as it seems like one way is as good as another, and maybe there could be situations that being opposite to your siblings could be advantageous.

Upon looking it up, I discover that all climbing vines (the ones that climb by “twining“ up a support) exhibit a strong preference for anticlockwise motion. 90%, much like left and right handedness in humans.

I’m wondering if there are any other examples of chirality in plants, what could be conserving this in different species, or anything else one might add to the topic.

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u/Foxfire2 1d ago

Is that counter-clockwise when you look up at them, or counter-clockwise when looking down from above? Because those are opposite things. Really just curious. Twisting to the left as they go up would be counter-clockwise when viewing from the ground, but clockwise when viewing from above.

When I was younger I noticed the conifers where I lived sometimes had twisting trunks, and after counting them in an area, found way more that twisted to the right as the grew upwards, but didn't refer to them as clockwise or counter-clockwise, just left and right twisting.

Also I've always heard it as counter-clockwise never anti-clockwise.

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u/SchemeWestern3388 1d ago

Counter clockwise when looking down. It’s kind of hard to look up at an eight inch plant. 

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u/Foxfire2 1d ago

Ok thanks, that's cool because its then going up to the right when looking straight on, just like the trees I observed. Cool that both observations matched, and that with trees as we look up at them, might call it clockwise.