22 
THE OAK 
another close to the tip, and a little longer and narrower 
than those lower down on the shoot ; from between these 
two linear structures the first true green foliage leaf of 
the oak arises, its short stalk being flanked by them. This 
y 
q 
yr y 
FR Mi) 2 
Fig. _4. — Germinating 
acorn, showing the man- 
ner of emergence of the 
primary shoot, and the 
first scales (stipules) on 
the latter. (After Ross- 
miissler.) 
first leaf is small, but the tip of 
the shoot goes on elongating and 
throwing out others and larger 
ones, until by the end of the 
summer there are about four to 
six leaves formed, each with its 
minute stalk flanked by a pair 
of tiny linear scales (‘ stipules,’ 
as they are called) like those 
referred to above. 
Each of the green leaves 
arises from a point on the young 
stem which is a little higher, and 
more to one side, than that from 
which the lowermost one springs; 
hence a line joining the points 
of insertion of the successive 
leaves describes an open spiral 
round the shoot axis—z.e. the 
stem—and this of such a kind 
that when the spiral comes to 
the sixth leaf upwards it is ver- 
tically above the first or oldest leaf from which we 
started, and has passed twice round the stem. 
At the end of this first year, which we may term 
