The Profound Effect on the Structure of Plants 71 



the botanical teacher has often much ado to convince his students 

 that it is anything else, even when he shows them the actual 

 leaves, reduced to scaly bracts, out of whose axils the leaf-like 

 branches clearly spring. Such is the case with the Butcher's 

 Broom of Europe, (figure 23), our common Asparagus, and the 

 cultivated Smilax of the florists. Finally there is even a case 



Fig. 22. — The leaf-like stem, with some small leaves, of Muehlenbeckia; one-half 



natural size. 

 Fig. 23. — The leaf-like branches of Butcher's Broom; one-half natural size. 



in a tropical Orchid, Taeniophyllum by name, where the roots 

 serve as foliage, becoming suitably flattened and otherwise ap- 

 propriately constructed. 



We cannot take space to follow any farther this most interest- 

 ing subject, but if the reader desires another and much fuller 

 discussion thereof, he will find it in the appropriate places in Asa 

 Gray's Structural Botany, where it is treated in a manner that in 

 my opinion cannot be surpassed. The subject, moreover, is one 

 which offers attractive opportunity for concentrated field study 



