258 



HUTGHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



gnarled Oak," and 110 description could be more appropriate. Xotice 

 the Ivy (Hedera helix), a familiar object everywhere. The beauty 

 of its light-veined leaves has often been celebrated by poets. Observe 

 particularly the direction of the principal veins in one of these leaves. 

 They radiate outwards from the base of the leaf, like the outspread 



fingers of the hand : 

 and hence are called 

 palmately veined. 

 The leaves on the 

 climbing stems of 

 the Ivy are always 

 lobed, and the de- 

 pressions or sinuses 

 between the lobes 

 are usualty shallow ; 

 but in other leaves 

 as the Common 

 Ragwort (Senecio 

 jacobcea) they are 

 deep and pinnate 

 (fig. 318). That 

 bushy-looking weed, 

 whose pale green 

 purple-edged flowers 

 must be sought for 

 earlier in the year, 

 is the Stinking 

 Hellebore (Helle- 

 borus foetidus) ; and 

 we are fortunate in 

 meeting with a 

 specimen here, as 

 the plant is rarely 

 found growing wild. 

 Its palmatel}' veined 



leaves are 

 divided, on 



deeply 

 which 



Photo by] [E. Step. 



FIG. 315. TUFTED VETCH (Vicia cracca). 



The finest of our Vetches, the bright blue flowers being gathered into a dense raceme 



which makes them very conspicuous. Th e plant climbs by means of tendrils, which 



are a continuation of the rachis. 



account they are 



called palmati-partite i fig. 316) ; while the downward-turned lobes at the 

 base of each define their place as among pedate leaves. Palmati-partite 

 leaves should be carefully distinguished, on the one hand, from palmately 

 lobed (palmatijid) leaves, the divisions of which do not extend so far as 

 those of the former : and. on the other hand, from palmately cleft (pal- 

 matisect) leaves, in which the divisions extend very nearly to the base. The 



