SOME COMMON BOTANICAL ERRORS 149 



joint of stem and one or more leaves. The support for 

 this idea is found partly in the jointed appearance of 

 many plants like grasses, and partly in the fact that the 

 so-called phytomer is usually the smallest part of a 

 plant that will grow. The latter, however, is a purely 

 physiological phenomenon of no morphological signifi- 

 cance ; a piece of stem can usually put out roots, and 

 some leaf surface is necessary to make food to enable 

 the plant to continue to grow. The jointed appearance 

 is purely incidental; the nodes are the places where the 

 fibrovascular bundles branch to run out into the leaves 

 and to unite with one another, and hence the node and 

 its accompanying internode have simply an anatomical 

 and not a morphological meaning. Embryology shows 

 that the plant, so far from being made by a series of 

 phytomera growing one out of another, is made by 

 continuously growing vegetative points, throwing off 

 laterally certain superficial portions which become 

 leaves, in whose axils the points branch. 



The true morphological relationships of the parts of 

 the higher plants are expressed in the following table :- 

 Root 



Shoot ^ 



Stem 



Blade 



[Leaf 



( Foliage ' Petiole 

 Stipules 

 Floral Petals and Sepals 



Sporophylls { Macrosporophylls (Carpels) . 

 I Microsporophylls (Stamens). 



Sporangia (containing J Macrosporangia (Ovules) . . 



Spores) L Microsporangia (Anthers) . . ) 



The 



