134: PROSEEPINA. 



8. [ II.] The strength of their supporting stem consists 

 not merely in the gathering together of all the fibres, but 

 in gathering them essentially into the profile of the letter 

 V, which you will see your doubled paper stem has ; and 

 of which you can feel the strength and use, in your hand, 

 as you hold it. Gather a common plantain leaf, and look 

 at the way it puts its round ribs together at the base, and 

 you will understand the matter at once. The arrange- 

 ment is modified and disguised in every possible way, 

 according to the leaf's need : in the aspen, the leaf -stalk 

 becomes an absolute vertical plank ; and in the large trees 

 is often almost rounded into the likeness of a fruit-stalk ; 

 but, in all,* the essential structure is this doubled one ; 

 and in all, it opens at the place where the leaf joins the 

 main stem, into a kind of cup, which holds next year's bud 

 in the hollow of it. 



9. Now there would be no inconvenience in your simply 

 getting into the habit of calling the round petiol of the 

 fruit the ' stalk,' and the contracted channel of the leaf, 

 c leaf -stalk.' But this way of naming them would not 

 snforce, nor fasten in your mind, the difference between 

 the two, so well as if you have an entirely different name 

 for the leaf -stalk. Which is the more desirable, because 

 the limiting character of the leaf, botanically, is (I only 

 learned this from my botanical friend the other day, just 



* General assertions of this kind must always be accepted under in 

 lulgence, exceptions being made afterwards. 



