THE STEM 



89 



instance, we know that the stem is the part of the plant which 

 normally bears leaves and flowers, and if either of these, 

 or if the small scales which often take the place of leaves, 

 are found growing on any plant structure, we may usually 

 take for granted that it is a stem. Then, again, as will be 

 shown in the next chapter, buds and branches naturally 

 appear only at the nodes, in or near the axil, or inner, angle 

 made by a leaf with the stem. Hence, if you see any growth 

 springing from such a position, you may generally conclude 

 it to be a stem. 



101. Stems as foliage. - The connection between stem 

 and leaf is so intimate that we need not be surprised to find 

 a frequent interchange of function 

 between them, the leaf, or some part 

 of it, doing the work of the stem 

 (Fig. 98), the stem more often taking 

 upon itself the office of the leaf. A 

 common example is the garden aspar- 

 agus. Examine one of the young 

 shoots sold in the market, and notice 

 that it bears a number of small scales 

 in place of leaves. On an older 

 shoot that has gone to seed, the 

 green, threadlike appendages, which 



FIG. 101. Stem-leaves 



are usually taken for foliage, will be (ciadophyiis) of a ruscus, bear- 

 found to spring each from the axil in s flowers - 

 of one of these scales. What, therefore, are we to conclude 

 that it is? 



In the butcher's-broom of Europe, the transformation has 

 gone so far that the branches of the stem have assumed the 

 flattened appearance of leaves (Fig. 101), but their real 

 nature is evident both from their position in the axils of 

 leaf scales, and from the fact that they bear flower clusters 

 in the axil of a scale on their upper face. Another example 

 of this sort of modification is seen in the pretty little myr- 

 siphyllum of the greenhouses (wrongly called smilax), which 



