CHAP. II. STEM. 56 



is seldom used; its adjective being employed instead: thus, 

 we say, rami viminei, or caulis vimmeus ; and not vimen. 

 From this kind of branch, that called a virffnte stem, caulis 

 virf/atus, differs only in being less flexible and more rigid. A 

 young slender branch of a tree or shrub is sometimes named 

 virgultum. Wlien the branches diverge nearly at right angles 

 from the stem, they are said to be hracliiate. Small stems, 

 which proceed from buds formed at the neck of a plant 

 without the previous production of a leaf, are called cauliculi. 



Besides these terms, Du Petit Thouars employed certain 

 French words in a way peculiar to himself. The first young 

 shoot produced during the year by a tree, he named scion; 

 any subsequent shoots formed by the scion, he termed ramilles; 

 the shoot that supports the scion was a rameau ; that which 

 supports the rameau a hranche ; and the trunk which bears the 

 whole the tronc. 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 certam 

 distance above the earth breaks out into irregular ramifica- 

 tions, 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 arhus- 

 culus is sometimes employed. When the branches are peren- 

 nial, proceeding directly from the surface of the earth without 

 any supporting trunk, we have a shrub {frutex or arbustum, 

 Lat.; and arbrisseau, Fr.), which occasionally, when very small, 

 receives the diminutive name oi fruticulus. If a shrub is low, 

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

 dumus) : this kind of shrub is what the French understand by 

 tlieir word buisson. Tlie suffrutex, unde7'-sJmcb, or sous-arbris- 

 seau, differs from the shrub, in perishing 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 Mignonette (Reseda odorota) in its native 

 country, or in the state in which it is known in gardens as the 

 Tree Mignonette. The under-shrub is exacdy intermediate 

 between the shmb and the herb. All plants producing shoots 



e4 



