MONOCOTYLEDONS 271 



leaves of the Palms are fan-shaped. In the Cuckoo 

 Pint the leaves are arrow-shaped, and net -veined as 

 in Dicotyledons. 



The first leaves are frequently alternate. The 

 leaves are often simple, alternate, and very generally 

 radical, the aerial stems, especially in Liliacese, being 

 scapes. The base of the leaf often sheathes the stem 

 as in the Cuckoo Pint, or next leaf as in grasses. 

 The cotyledon may also sheath the stem as in A lisma, 

 being then lateral. 



The stems are, according to old terminology, 

 endogenous, i.e. growth takes place centripetally, 

 not centrifugally as in exogens or Dicotyledons, 

 according to the same nomenclature. But these 

 histological distinctions are not accurate expres- 

 sions of the actual structure and behaviour of the 

 elements that make up the fibre or wood and bast. 

 Amongst British Monocotyledons the Butcher's 

 Broom is the only type in which wood is developed, 

 the plant being a shrub, whereas the foreign types 

 include many trees as Palms or arborescent types as 

 Bambtcsa. 



The vascular bundles are scattered, and not 

 arranged in rings. Instead of there being an inward 

 growth in Monocotyledons, some of the separate 

 bundles are grouped together and pass upwards and 

 outwards, entering a leaf-base, and the lower ends are 

 scattered below, and outwards, ending here and there 

 in a network below the surface. This is, moreover, 

 similar to the manner of distribution in Dicotyledons 



