THE LEAF AS A BUILDER. 



9 



Fig. E.— Sassafras Leaf. 



still without a toothed 

 edge. The lohed leaf of 

 the sassafras is a good 

 illustration of this type 

 (see Fig. E). 



The toothed leaf of 

 the yellow birch (see Fig. 

 B) comes next among the 

 simpler forms ; but even 

 this type is not quite as 

 simple as that of the 



beech leaf (see the second drawing in this chapter), for 

 the birch as well as the slippery-elm leaf is double- 

 toothed, while the beech leaf is the plain- 

 est, shallowest-toothed affair which Nature 

 has designed. Perhaps Viburnum 

 dentatum, which will be found 

 in a succeeding chapter, has 

 a leaf almost correspond- 

 ingly simple, but the teeth 

 are cut deeper, and the 

 veining is not nearly so 

 plain. 



The silver-maple leaf 

 comes next in order (see 

 Fig. F); this leaf is both 



divided and toothed, but t^ [t io . F.-Silver-Maple Leaf. 



