A liana climbing & encircling a tree at the David C. Lam Asian Garden in Vancouver. Lianas are woody vines that use trees as a method to climb forest canopies & this garden has many examples of lianas. From the UCB website: "Lianas are vigorous, shade-tolerant, climbing species that start as seedlings on the forest floor. Many eventually surmount the surrounding vegetation, smothering or strangling individual plants in the process. Once exposed to full sunlight at the top of the canopy, lianas often flower and fruit prolifically. In the David C. Lam Asian Garden, the more vigorous climbers such as Actinidia (kiwi fruit), Vitis (grape), Wisteria and Hedera (ivy) are tolerated as long as they are not a threat to the host tree's health or liable to become weedy." And from Wikipedia: "Lianas compete intensely with trees, greatly reducing tree growth and tree reproduction, greatly increasing tree mortality, preventing tree seedlings from establishing, and altering the course of regeneration in forests. Lianas also provide access routes in the forest canopy for many arboreal animals, including ants and many other invertebrates, lizards, rodents, sloths, monkeys, and lemurs. For example, in the Eastern rainforests of Madagascar, many prosimians achieve higher mobility from the web of lianas draped amongst the vertical tree species. Many lemurs prefer trees with lianas for their roost sites. Lianas also provide support for trees when strong winds blow. However, they may be destructive in that when one tree falls, the connections made by the lianas may cause many other trees to fall."