78 FLOWERS OF THI- FIELD AND FOREST. 



that can be bounded with curves and angles is seen in the foliage 

 of plants. I often wonder why people who show such industry 

 and perseverance in collecting and preserving business-cards, 

 postal-stamps, and other artificial productions do not make col- 

 lections of the leaves of plants. I am sure they would furnish a 

 more pleasing variety and a vastly greater originality of design 

 than do the favorite objects. What an excellent opportunity, 

 too, would such a collection furnish for the study of similar but 

 unlike forms, and of the variations, little and great, regular and 

 irregular, which nature is so fond of playing upon her primary 

 themes. 



Then, too, the venation of the leaves would open a wide field 

 for study and comparison. Indeed, in this we have a fundamental 

 characteristic of the vegetable kingdom. All plants with what is 

 called " parallel-veined " leaves, such as the present one, the lilies, 

 the grasses, Indian corn, etc., are monocotyledonous, that is, they 

 spring up from the seed with one primary leaf. But all leaves with 

 netted veins like those of the maple, or oak, or bean, or pumpkin, 

 belong to dicotyledonous plants, or plants with two primary or seed 

 leaves. These are the two great divisions of the plant kingdom. 

 This would be of no great moment if the one leaf or the two 

 leaves of its initial life were all. But it is not. These are only the 

 outward signs of great and important differences in the methods 

 of growth, structure, habits, and life-history of the plants. The 

 venation determines the form and size of the leaf. It is what the 

 bones are to the animal, its skeleton. 



Naturalists undertake to account for many simple things in 

 nature on the grounds of utility. They tell us that the tawny skin 

 of the lion, the spots of the leopard, and the stripes of the tiger 



