^iVigg aaid 



round succulent stem ; it must be 

 drawn with firm clear lines (not thick 

 here, thin there), but with a decided 

 unbroken sweep from joint 

 to joint, where there is a 

 thickness requiring careful 

 notice ; at each joint are 

 two little sheaths, and they 

 have formed a protection 

 for the carh- stages of the leaf and its 

 accompanying tendril we see at each of 

 these joints. These stems, so tender 

 and brittle now, will become hard and 

 wood)- as the season goes on its way, and 

 the joints, each containing the beginnings 

 of a new shoot of its own, are part of the 

 plant's scheme of growth, and therefore 

 their importance must not be overlooked. 

 It is an inexcusable error, and yet an 

 error one often sees perpetrated, to draw a 

 spray thicker towards the point than where 

 it springs from its parent stem : it does not 

 require much logic to see that this is im- 

 possible. The sap must pass through that 

 lower part first, and if the stem grew thicker 

 instead of thinner, how could there be enough of 

 that sap, passing through a narrower channel 

 first, to nourish it adequately ? Look at the spraj' 

 of Virginia creeper, and you will .see that, beyond 

 the thickening incidental to the joints, each section 

 tapers the farther it grows awaj^ from its parent 

 stem; this tapering may in some 

 cases be very gradual, but it is 

 ' always there. 



This principle applies, of 

 course, to all vegetation : j-ou 

 will notice it especially in your 

 studies of trees ; a lesser branch 

 could not support a larger, and 

 if this simple fact were kept 

 more constantlj- before us, how 

 much truer and more con- 

 vincing many Nature Studies 

 would look ! 



86 



