io8 THE GARDEN OF CYRUS 



round leaves ? Why coniferous trees are tenuifolious 

 or narrow-leafed ? Why plants of few or no joints 

 have commonly round stalks ? Why the greatest 

 number of hollow stalks are round stalks ; or why in 

 this variety of angular stalks the quadrangular most 

 exceedeth, were too long a speculation ? Meanwhile 

 obvious experience may find, that in plants of divided 

 leaves above, nature often beginneth circularly in the 

 two first leaves below, while in the singular plant of 

 ivy she exerciseth a contrary geometry, and beginning 

 with angular leaves below, rounds them in the upper 

 branches. 



Nor can the rows in this order want delight, as 

 carrying an aspect answerable unto the dipteros hypte- 

 thros, or double order of columns open above ; the 

 opposite ranks of trees standing like pillars in the 

 cavedia of the courts of famous buildings, and the 

 porticoes of the templa subdialia of old ; somewhat 

 imitating the peristylia or cloister-buildings, and the 

 exedne of the ancients, wherein men discoursed, 

 walked, and exercised ; for that they derived the rule 

 of columns from trees, especially in their proportional 

 diminutions, is illustrated by Vitruvius from the shafts 

 of fir and pine. And, though the inter-arboration do 

 imitate the areostylos, or thin order, not strictly 



