APPENDAGES TO PLANTS. 83 



acknowledge that this blindness must be owing to the limited 

 nature of our own faculties. It would be impious for us to ima- 

 gine, that all the works of God which we cannot comprehend, 

 are useless. 



The organs to which we now refer are called by the gene- 

 ral name of appendages ; they consist of seven different kinds, 

 Stipules, Prickles, Thorns, Glands, Stings, Scales, Tendrils, 

 Pubescence, and Bracts. 



Fig- 43. 1st. Stipules, are 



membranous or leafy 

 scales, usually in pairs, 

 at or near the base of 

 the leaf or petiole. The 

 stipules furnish charac- 

 ters used in botanical 

 distinctions. They are 

 various in their forms 

 and situations, found in most plants, but sometimes wanting. 

 In the garden violet, VIOLA TRICOLOR (Fig. 43, a, a), the sti- 

 pules are of that form called lyrate pinnatifid, while the true 

 leaf (#), is oblong and crenate. The most natural situation of 

 the stipules is in pairs, one on each side of the base of the foot- 

 stalk, as in the sweet pea ; some stipules fall off almost as soon 

 as the leaves are expanded, but in general, they remain as long 

 as the leaves. 



2d. Prickles, arise from the bark; they are sometimes 

 straight, sometimes hooked, and sometimes forked. They are 

 usually found upon the stem, as in the rose ; but in some cases, 

 they cover the petiole, as in the raspberry ; in others, they are 

 found upon the leaf or the calyx, and in some instances, upon 

 the berry ; as in the gooseberry. 



3d. Thorns, seem to be a kind of short pointed stem, easily 

 distinguished from prickles, as they grow from the woody part 

 of the plant, while the prickle proceeds only from the bark. On 

 stripping the bark from a rose bush, the prickles will come 

 away with it, but let the same experiment be made with a thorn 

 bush, and although the bark may be separated, the thorn will 

 still remain projecting from the wood. 



Different kinds of appendages Stipules Prickles Thorns Difference be- 

 tween the thorn and the prickle. 



