Fig. 40. 



42 BOTANY FOR BEGINNERS. ^Ch. X 



coarse scales of a fish; they are often green, sometimes colour- 

 ed, and are found upon all parts of vegetables, upon the roots 

 of bulbous plants, and upon the stems and branches of other 

 plants. They are imbricated upon the calyxes of most of the 

 compound flowers. You have seen in buds, how important the 

 scales are to protect the embryo plant during the winter. Scales 

 surround the flowers of grasses, under the name of glumes. 

 They envelope and sustain the stamens and fruit of the pine, 

 oak, chestnut, &t. . 



N 



248. Tendrils, or claspers, are threadlike, 

 or filiform appendages, by which weak stems 

 attach themselves to other bodies for sup- 

 port ; they usually rise from the branches, in 

 some cases from the leaf, and rarely from 

 I the leaf-stalk or flower-stalk. You have here 

 the representation, Fig. 40, of a tendril. 

 Tendrils are very important and characteris- 

 tic appendages to many plants. In the 

 Trumpet flower and Ivy, the tendrils serve 

 for roots, planting themselves into the bark 

 of trees, or in the walls of buildings. In the 

 Cucumber and some other plants, f endril? 

 serve both for sustenance and shade. M;niy 

 , of the papilionaceous, or Pea blossom plants, 

 ^have twining tendrils, which wind to the 

 right and back again. Some plants creep by 

 their tendrils to a very great height, even tt 

 the tops of the loftiest trees ; and seem to 

 cease ascending only because they can find 

 nothing higher to climb upon. One of our 

 most beautiful climbing plants is the CLEMA- 

 TIS 'cfrginica, or Virgin's bower, which has 

 flowers of a brilliant whiteness ; in autumn, 

 its pericarps, with the long pistils remaining 

 upon them,'Took like festoons of rich, yellowish fringe. 



249. Pubescence includes all down, hairs, woolliness, or 

 silkiness of plants. The pubescence of plants varies in differ 

 ent soils, and with different modes of cultivation. The species 

 in some genera of plants are distinguished by the direction o! 

 the hairs. A microscope is sometimes necessary in determining 

 with precision the existence and direction of the pubescence. 

 ft has been suggested that these appendages may be given to 



248. What are tendrils? 



249. Wh;.t is included under the term pubescence! 



