VIII. THE STEM. I 59 



the young ground-rods in which the dual groups 

 of leaves crowd themselves in their haste into 

 clusters of three. 



But, for our point of Latin history, remember 

 always that in 400 B.C., just a year before the 

 death of Socrates at Athens, this family of Stolid 

 persons manifested themselves at Rome, shooting 

 up from plebeian roots into places where they 

 had no business ; and preparing the way for the 

 degradation of the e ntire Roman 

 race under the Empire ; their suc- 

 cess being owed, remember also, to 

 the faults of the patricians, for one 

 of the laws passed by Calvus Stolo 

 was that the Sibylline books should 

 be in custody of ten men, of whom 

 five should be plebeian, " that no 

 falsifications might be introduced 

 in favour of the patricians." 



20. All this time, however, we 

 have got no name for the prettiest 

 of all stems, — that of annual flowers 

 growing high from among their 

 ground leaves, like lilies of the 

 valley, and saxifrages, and the tall 

 primulas — of which this pretty type, tlg ' I5 ' 



Fig. 15, was cut for me by Mr. Burgess years 



