194 



WOOD OF BARBACENIA. 



[BOOK ii. 



that their surface is unusually fibrous and ragged when old, 

 and closely coated by the remains of sheathing leaves when 

 young. Upon examining a transverse section of it, the stem 

 is found to consist of a small, firm, pale, central circle having 

 the ordinary endogenous organisation, and of a large number 

 of smaller and very irregular oval spaces pressed closely 

 together, but having no organic connection ; between these 

 are traces of a chaffy ragged kind of tissue which seems as if 

 principally absorbed and destroyed. (See fig. 192.) 



A vertical section of the thickest part of this stem exhibits, 



192 



1.03 



in addition to a pale, central, endogenous column, woody 

 branches crossing each other or lying parallel, after the 



