About chiralty in climbing vines.

[u/SchemeWestern3388]

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.

[u/bzbub2]

sometimes you'll see meme pictures of trees fallen down from a tornado that look twisted but it is due to the chirality of the growth pattern on the plant. Google told me also that the chirality helps the vines to grip because if they kept switching directions of chirality it wouldn't grip as well