50 THE OAK 
smaller veins which form a network in the area included 
by them. In the neighbourhood of the leaf-margin, 
however, the smaller veins curve towards one another, 
and make arches convex towards the margin. In the 
finer meshes individual minute branches run to the 
centre of a mesh and end there. Round the extreme 
edge of the leaf isa single vascular bundle; this receives 
small bundles from the above-mentioned arches, and 
also receives the ends of the midrib and the chief lateral 
ribs (cf. fig. 1). 
The vascular bundles of the axillary bud, which will 
eventually, of course, form a system like that already 
described on their own account, pass down and join the 
bundles of the parent axis as follows. 
The bundles of each lateral half of the bud (fig. 11, 
aa) pass down together between the bundles of the leaf- 
race of the leaf from whose axil the bud arises, and the 
next lateral bundles of the stem with which the leaf-trace 
bundles are conjoined; the common strand formed by 
the bundles of each side of the bud then joins with a 
bundle coming down from another leaf. A few of the 
strands may also join to the bundles of the leaf-trace 
itself. 
At the back or top side of the bud—z.e. the side next 
the stem which bears it—a few vascular bundles pass 
from the bud to the nearest strand (fig. 11, z); this is 
the middle strand coming down from the leaf vertically 
above the bud—7.e. the sixth leaf up the stem. Knowing 
this, we of course know how the branch is joined to the 
