THE MORPHOLOGICAL COMPOSITION OF PLANTS. 



57 



tame time that the incurved edges of the foliar surfaces 

 united. The arrangements of the tubular axis and its ap 

 pendages, thus resulting, are still more instructive than those 

 of the solid axis. For while, even more clearly than in the 

 Deiidrobium, we see at the point b, a continuity of structure 

 between the substance of the axis below the node, and the 

 substance of the sheath above the node ; we see that this 

 rfieath, instead of having its edges united as in Dendrobium, 

 has them simply overlapping, so as to form an incomplete 

 hollow cylinder which may be taken off and unrolled; 



and we see that were the overlapping edges of this sheath, 

 united all the way from the node a to the node fe, it would 

 constitute a tubular axis, like that which precedes it or like 

 that which it includes. And then, giving an unexpected 

 conclusiveness to the argument, it turns out that in one 

 family of grasses, the overlapping edges of the sheaths do 

 unite : thus furnishing us with a demonstration that tubular 

 structures are produced by the incurving and joining or 

 foliar surfaces ; and that so, hollow axes may be interpreted 

 as above, without making any assumption unwarranted by 

 fact. One further correspondence between the 



type thus ideally constructed, and the endogenous type, must 

 oe noted. If, as already pointed out, the transverse growth of 



