1 74 PROSERPINA. 



though there are some apparent exceptions to 

 the law, there are, I believe, no real ones, if 

 we define a branch rightly. Thus, the head of 

 a palm tree is merely a cluster of large leaves ; 

 and the spike of a grass, a clustered blossom. 

 The stem, in both, is unbranched ; and we should 

 be able in this respect to classify plants very 

 simply indeed, but for a provoking species of 

 intermediate creatures whose branching is always 

 in the manner of corals, or sponges, or aborescent 

 minerals, irregular and accidental, and essenti- 

 ally, therefore, distinguished from the systematic 

 anatomy of a truly branched tree. Of these 

 presently ; we must go on by very short steps : 

 and I find no step can be taken without check 

 from existing generalizations. Sowerby's defini- 

 tion of Monocotyledons, in his ninth volume, 

 begins thus : " Herbs, (or rarely, and only in 

 exotic genera,) trees, in which the wood, pith, 

 and bark are indistinguishable." Now if there be 

 one plant more than another in which the pith 

 is defined, it is the common Rush ; while the 

 nobler families of true herbs derive their principal 

 character from being pithless altogether ! We 

 cannot advance too slowly. 



5. In the families of one-leaved plants in which 

 the young leaves grow directly out of the old ones, 



