XI. GENEALOGY. 203 



fairest, the stem following them and sustaining, where 

 they will. 



36. Thus, as we examine successively each part of any 

 plant, new sisterhoods, and unthought-of fellowships, 

 will be found between the most distant orders ; and ra- 

 vines of unexpected separation open between those other- 

 wise closely allied. Few botanical characters are more 

 definite than the leaf structure illustrated in Plate VI., 

 which has given to one group of the Drosidae the descrip- 

 tive name of Ensatae, (see above, Chapter IX., 11,) but 

 this conformation would not be wisely permitted to in- 

 terfere in the least with the arrangement founded on 

 the much more decisive floral aspects of the Iris and 

 Lily. So, in the fifth volume of ' Modern Painters,' the 

 sword-like, or rather rapier-like, leaves of the pine are 

 opposed, for the sake of more vivid realization, to the 

 shield-like leaves of the greater number of inland trees ; 

 but it would be absurd to allow this difference any share 

 in botanical arrangement, else we should find ourselves 

 thrown into sudden discomfiture by the wide-waving and 

 opening foliage of the palms and ferns. 



37. But through all the defeats by which insolent en- 

 deavors to sum the orders of Creation must be reproved, 

 and in the midst of the successes by which patient 

 insight will be surprised, the fact of the confirmation of 

 species in plants and animals must remain always a mirac- 

 ulous one. What outstretched sign of constant Omnipo- 

 tence can be more awful, than that the susceptibility to 



