132 PHYLLOTAXY, OR LEAF-AltRANGEMENT. 



SECTION II. DISPOSITION OF LEAVES IN THE BUD. 



249. Vernation and ^Estivation are terms in general use, under 

 which the disposition of leaves in the bud is treated. The first 

 relates to ordinary leaves in this early condition ; the second, to 

 the parts of a flower-bud ; not, however, as respects insertion, 

 or position on the axis, which is phyllotaxy (231). but as to 



the ways in which they 

 are coiled, folded, over- 

 lapped, &c., either perse 

 or inter se. Prcefoliation 

 and Prcefloration are 

 etymologically better 

 terms, substituted by 

 Richard. 1 



250. The descriptive 

 terms which relate to 

 individual leaves or 

 ** parts, whether of foli- 



age or blossom, mostly range themselves under the heads of 

 plications or of enrolling, and are such as the following, the 

 sectional diagrams of which are copied from the original figures 



would make the two plans equally primordial. But the freedom with 

 which these actually interchange on the same axis greatly favors the less 

 hypothetical view that whorls may be condensed spirals. This assumes 

 only the well-known fact that internodes may be completely non-developed. 



1 Better formed and more expressive terms: but the Linnaean ones are 

 most in use, and, though fanciful, are not misleading. In English description, 

 it is as convenient and equally terse to say that the parts are imbricate, val- 

 vate, &c., "in the bud." Linnaeus, in the Philosophia Botanica, described 

 these dispositions of leaves in the bud under the term Foliatio, not a happy 

 name, but did not treat of them in the flower-bud. Later, in Termini 

 Botanici (Amcen. Acad. vi. 1762, reprinted by Giseke in 1781), he intro- 

 duced the words Vernatio and sEstivatio in their now current botanical sense, 

 to designate, not the time of leafing and of flowering (spring and summer 

 condition), but the disposition of the parts in the leaf-bud and flower-bud 

 (at least of the petals) as respects foldings, coiling, &c., of single parts, and 

 modes of overlapping or otherwise of contiguous parts. The terminology 

 as regards single leaves, Linnreus fixed nearly as it now remains. That of 

 leaves or their homologues in connection, and as respects the flower-bud, was 

 very imperfectly developed until its importance (and much of its termi- 

 nology) was indicated by Robert Brown, in his memoir on Proteacea?, 1800, 

 in the Prodromus a year later, and in other publications. 



Ptyxis (the Greek name) is coming into use as a general term for the 

 folding, &c., of single parts. 



FIG. 249-254. I.innsean diagrams of sections of leaves in the bud 249. Conduph- 

 rate. 250. Plicate or plaited 251. Convolute. 252. Revolute. 253. Involute. 254. 

 Circinate or Cirdnal. 



