50 ELEMENTS OF BOTANY. 
form the work of leaves. The familiar greenhouse climber, 
wrongly known as smilax (properly called Myrsiphyllum), 
bears a profusion of what appear to be delicate green leaves, 
Fig. 39. Close study, however, shows that these are really 
short, flattened branches, and each of them springs from the 
axil of a true leaf, 7, in the form of a minute scale. Some- 
Fic. 38. — A Melon-Cactus. 
. a \ 
times, as shown at jf, a flower anda ~ 
- - ® 
‘Fic. 37.—Longitudinal _leaf-like branch spring from the axil of 
Section of an Onion Leaf. the same seale. 
2, thickened base of leaf, > Branches which, like those of tle 
forming a bulb-seale; s, : 
thin sheath of leaf; 1,i, Myrsiphyllum, so _ closely resemble 
blade of ‘the leaf; % leaves as to be almost indistinguish- 
hollow interior of blade. 
able from them are called cladophylls. 
- 74. Modifiability of the Stem. —The stem may, as in the 
tallest trees, in the great lianas of South American forests, 
seen in the frontispiece, or the rattan of Indian jungles, reach 
a length of many hundred feet, or it may in such “stemless” 
