STRUCTURE.] VARIETIES OF BRANCHES. 169 



confined to mosses. When such a shoot is covered with 

 scales upon its first appearance, as the Asparagus, it is called 

 turio ; by the old botanists all such shoots were named 

 asparagi. When a shoot is long and flexible, it receives the 

 name of vimen. This word, however, is seldom used; its 

 adjective being employed instead: thus, we say, rami viminei } 

 or caulis vimineus; and not vimen. From this kind of branch, 

 that called a- virgate stem, caulis virgatus, differs only in being 

 less flexible. A young slender branch of a tree or shrub is 

 sometimes named virgultum. When the branches diverge 

 nearly at right angles from the stem, they are said to be 

 brachiate. Small stems, which proceed from buds formed at 

 the neck of a plant without the previous production of a leaf, 

 are called cauliculi. 



Link calls a stem which proceeds straight from the earth 

 to the summit, bearing its branches on its sides, as Pinus, a 

 caulis excurrens, and a stem which at a certain distance above 

 the earth breaks out into irregular ramifications, a caulis 

 deliquescens. 



From the constitution and ramifications of their branches, 

 plants are divided into trees, shrubs, and herbs. If the 

 branches are perennial, and supported upon a trunk, a tree 

 (arbor) is said to be formed; for a small tree, the term 

 arbusculus is sometimes employed. When the branches are 

 perennial, proceeding directly from the surface of the earth 

 without any supporting trunk, we have a shrub (frutex or 

 arbustum, Lat.), which occasionally, when very small, receives 

 the diminutive name of fruticulus. If a shrub is low, and 

 very much branched, it is often called dumosus (subst. dumus) . 

 The suffrutex, or under-shrub, differs from the shrub, in perish- 

 ing annually, either wholly or in part; and from the herb, 

 in having branches of a woody texture, which frequently 

 exist more than one year : such is the Mignionette (Reseda 

 odorata) in its native country, or in the state in which it is 

 known in gardens as the Tree Mignionette. The under- 

 shrub is exactly intermediate between the shrub and the 

 herb. All plants producing shoots of annual duration from 

 the surface of the earth are called herbs. 



Some botanists distinguish two sorts of stems, the 



