Definitions. xxix 



Note. Here should be noticed a very common error. On asking 

 for information about a tree or shrub, one is often told " it has no 

 flower," or " it has no fruit ;" the fact being that the flower is in- 

 conspicuous, or the fruit does not appear under the given circum- 

 stances. But every plant, except such low forms as ferns, mossep, 

 lichens, seaweeds, &c., has a flower of some sort, and every plant, 

 except those which are exclusively male (the female plants of the 

 same species being then found separately), will under natural condi- 

 tions produce fruit, or at least seed; though there are many which, 

 when removed from their natural conditions, will not flower, and many 

 more which, under similar circumstances, flower, but will not fruit. 



8. I. THE EOOT. Roots which consist chiefly of slender fibres are 

 called yjbrows; those which consist mainly of one main tapering root 

 going straight down are called tap roots: such fleshy roots as carrots 

 and turnips are looked on as modifications of tap roots. Those which 

 have the main root or its branches thickened into one or more fleshy 

 or woody masses are called tuberous, as in the potato. Bulbs, which 

 are commonly looked on as roots, are really subterranean buds grow- 

 ing on the lower part of the stem (stock] of perennial plants, and 

 the real roots are the fibres at the bottom of the bulb. 



Roots are sometimes given off from the stems of climbers or creepers, 

 as in ivy, and more rarely from buds, which in some plants are pro- 

 duced on the edges of the leaves ; see BryopTiyllum. Aquatic plants 

 sometimes bear vesicles or air-bladders on their roots, just as tubers 

 are borne on the roots of terrestrial plants. 



9. II. THE STEM. The stems of plants are mostly cylindrical (in 

 ordinary language round), but sometimes angular or flat. In the 

 great majority of plants they are erect, i.e. growing straight upwards 

 without support. Of plants which are not erect, the stems sometimes 

 climb by extending themselves over the surface of trees, walls, or 

 other supports, and sometimes twine, by winding spirally round any 

 object that they attach themselves to. Creepers are those whose 

 stems lie flat on the ground, and put out roots at the joints. When 

 the stems lie flat without thus rooting they are called prostrate, and 

 when partially prostrate procumbent. Plants which are erect with a 

 tendency to climb, are sometimes called ascending, and the same term 

 is often applied to plants which first spread a little horizontally and 

 then become erect. 



Those points of the stem at which branches or leaves are given off 

 are called nodes, and the same term is applied to similar points in the 

 branches themselves. 



10. When a plant has no proper stem, and the leaves are therefore 

 all radical (i.e. from the root), the naked stalk which bears the 

 flowers, as in the primrose, the hyacinth, &c., is called the scape. 



11. III. THE LEAF. The stalk of a leaf, when it has one, is called 

 the petiole; when it has none, the leaf is sessile. The point where 

 the leaf, whether petioled or sessile, leaves the stem is called 

 the axil of the leaf. This is, therefore, almost the same as the node 

 of the stem. 



Sessile leaves are called stem-clasping, when the base of the leaf is 



b 



