4 EXAMINATION OF [CHAP. 



At the extremity of the principal stem of your fully- 

 grown buttercup, you find a tuft of coloured leaves form- 

 ing a flower. All the branches, also, end in flowers or 

 flower-buds. 



The stem, we find, ascends ; is coloured green, and is 

 herbaceous in texture ; it bears foliage-leaves and ends in 

 a flower. 



3. FOLIAGE-LEAVES. I use the term foliage-leaves at 

 present simply in order to avoid confusion with the 

 leaves of which flowers are composed. It is not neces- 

 sary you should always call them so, but it is necessary 

 that you thoroughly understand that, speaking generally, 

 whatever is borne by the stem and its branches is a leaf 

 of some kind, whether it be green, as are foliage-leaves, 

 or coloured, as are flower-leaves. 



We have already remarked that the lowest leaves have 

 long stalks. As they seem to spring from the root they 

 may be called radical leaves. They really spring from a 

 portion of the stem, which is thickened and more or less 

 buried underground, giving off root-fibres below and 

 radical leaves from above. This portion of the stem 

 is called the stock. 



The point on the stem from which any leaf is given off 

 is called a node; the space between two nodes is called 

 an internode. It is owing to the non-development of the 

 internodes of the stock that the leaves which it bears 

 appear to be given off in a tuft. 



Each radical leaf consists of stalk and blade; the stalk 

 supporting the blade is called a petiole. The base of the 

 petiole, observe, is more or less sheathing, and the blade 

 is much divided into deep segments, which again are 

 further more or less lobed. The upper leaves, obviously 

 springing from the stem, may be described as can line. 

 Being destitute of petioles, they are termed sessile. The 

 same word is used of any part of a plant to denote the 

 absence of a stalk, Avhether that stalk be a petiole (which 

 is the stalk of a foliage-leaf only) or not. All the foliage- 

 leaves have the blade spread out more or less horizontally, 

 and they are all coloured a deep green. They may be 

 hairy, or nearly glabro2ts, that is, destitute of hairs. 



We find, then, the foliage-leaves to be borne by, and 

 around, the stem ; they are thin, coloured green, and 



