Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. N. Parthasarathy, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry for helpful comments on the manuscript and for images of Entada growing in natural forests in the Eastern Ghats, and Prof. Stephan Schnitzer, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA for information on lianas in Panama. We thank Prof. N. V. Joshi, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, Bangalore for discussions and encouragement.