4 6 SUMMER 



some strange struggles between light and darkness. In a 

 certain high hedgerow an ash and a holly grew in close 

 juxtaposition, and the holly as it progressed made a dark 

 shade for some ten feet from the ground. From the ash 

 stool the shoots set out at an astounding pace to escape 

 through this deadly darkness. Most of those that reached 

 the top lived, though even they had a struggle, as the stems 

 were hardly stouter than reeds so fast had they grown. 

 Those that could not get a leaf to the light in time withered 

 and stood in a sheaf like the centre of a blackberry or rasp- 

 berry bush in winter, when the annual shoots have withered. 

 Trees and plants go to almost as many devices to obtain 

 the maximum of sun for their leaves as they do to scatter 

 their seed in autumn. As a general rule the lower the 

 boughs the more horizontal. You may see some remark- 

 able examples on the firs and the maples ; and whatever 

 the direction of the bough, the leaves turn themselves so 

 that the plane of their surface is as nearly as may be facing 

 the sun at its height. On some plants, such as the night- 

 shade, the size of the leaves varies so that the smaller may 

 fill up the interstices of the bigger without overlapping. In 

 some the leaves are actually modified in shape in order that 

 none may be shaded. The tulip-tree, one of the quaintest 

 and most charming of exotics, offers examples. In a host of 

 plants and some trees the stalks of the leaves grow long or 

 short with just such precision as the mosaic demands. There 

 is a common wild geranium with a mauve-pink flower that 

 forms rosettes of almost mathematical precision. The rose 

 lies flat on the ground, and in a good specimen you may have 

 some ado either to find any considerable crevice between the 

 leaves or any serious overlapping of one leaf by another. 

 Low-lying plants are perhaps most successful in this, especi- 

 ally if they lie in sombre places where light is valuable. 

 Some amazing mosaic tracings have been made of ivy growing 



