IX. OUTSIDE AND IX. 



171 



Fig. 16. 



quite particular root * somewhere. Let a b c, 

 Fig. 16, be three leaves, each, as you see, with its 

 own root, and by no means de- 

 pendent on other leaves for its 

 daily bread ; and let the horizontal 

 line be the surface of the ground. 

 Then the plant has no stem, or an 

 underground one. But if the three 

 leaves rise above the ground, as in 

 Fig. 1 7, they must reach their roots 

 by elongating their stalks, and this elongation is the 

 stem of the plant. If the outside leaves grow last 

 and are therefore youngest, the plant 

 is said to grow from the outside. You 

 know that ' ex ' means out, and that 

 ' gen ' is the first syllable of Genesis (or 

 creation), therefore the old botanists, 

 putting an o between the two syllables, 

 called plants whose outside leaves 

 grew last, Ex-o-gens. If the inside 

 leaf grows last, and is youngest, the 

 plant was said to grow from the inside, and from 

 the Greek Endon, within, called an ' Endo-gen.' If 



Fig. 17. 



* Kecent botanical research makes this statement more than 

 dubitable. Xevertheless, on no other supposition can the forms 

 and action of tree-branches, so far as at present known to me, be 

 yet clearly accounted for. 



