164 SYLVAN WINTER. 



buds are produced irregularly along the twigs, 

 but mostly in opposite alternation. It is this 

 arrangement which occasions the picturesqueness 

 of growth of this tree, taken in connection with 

 the manner of growth of the shoot from node 

 to node. Sometimes, as will be noticed by our 

 drawing, the shoot in growing beyond the node 

 grows straight, and sometimes it grows at a more 

 or less sharp angle from it, thus causing the 

 turns which are more or less sharp in degree and 

 the angles, which are sometimes acute and some- 

 times broad. The buds of the spray are not very 

 prominent, though sufficiently conspicuous both 

 at the nodes and at the ends of the shoots. They 

 would be more conspicuous but for a beautiful 

 provision of Nature by which the tender embryo 

 leaf, enclosed within the outer covering, is pro- 

 tected from frost and cold. The leaf-stalk of 

 the Plane is hollow at its base, and under this 

 hollow part is found the new bud. When the 

 leaf drops in the fall of the year, the bud for the 

 next season is revealed, but the covering it loses 

 by the fall of the protecting hollow of the old leaf- 

 stalk has been very beautifully provided for. 



