7C THE PHENOMENON OF 



stages, from a few inches often to the enormous length 

 of 25 feet, and sink down again, with more rapid steps, 

 to about the same brevity; to which it must be added, 

 that on minute examination of the earliest subterraneous 

 leaves of the sprout, and of the cotyledons of the germi- 

 nating plant, the point of departure would doubtless be 

 found smaller, as, on the other hand, we may conclude, 

 from the file-like rows in which the flowers stand in the 

 axil of a bract, that the (in proportion to the flower) large 

 bracts are not the last members of the hypsophyllary 

 formation, but that undistinguishable hypsophyllary- 

 leaves (bracteoles) exist at the base of the individual 

 flowers, forming the true termination of the leaf-forma- 

 tion of the " stock." 



A similar rise and fall in the length of the leaves is 

 repeated in the region of the flower. The sepals are 

 sometimes immediately connected with the last hypso- 

 phyllary-leaves by their length, often by their whole 

 form, excepting the usually, greater breadth; this is the 

 case in Hetteborus fcetidus, Ruta graveolens, and Phlox 

 paniculata, in which the sepals agree almost perfectly, in 

 size and shape, with the last hypsophyllary -leaves. But 

 more frequently the calyx exhibits a new increase of 

 length in relation to the last hypsophyllary-leaves. To 

 confirm this I need only refer to the numerous plants 

 which possess bracteoles (Vbrblatter) on the peduncles of 

 lateral flowers, these bracteoles being almost always very 

 small and slender, and even frequently almost indis- 

 tinguishably small; see, for instance, Aconitum, Del- 

 phinium, Viola, Polygala, Colutea and other Legumi- 

 nosae, Molucetta, Calamintha, Gratiola, Convolvulus, &c. 

 We can also detect this in terminal flowers, e. g. in 

 Dianthus, where the sepals, blended below into a long 

 tube, are preceded by several pairs of shorter scales ;* 



* The two to three pairs of scale-like leaves beneath the calyx of the 

 pinks increase in length in the ascending order, and therefore belong pro- 

 perly to the new advance of the leaf-formation commencing in the ilowcr, 

 forming an epiealyx, as occurs also in the mallow. 



