120 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



usually slender, blade -like, much -divided 

 leaves, all split up into little long narrow 

 pushing segments, because they cannot get 

 sunlight and air enough to build up a single 

 large respectable rounded leaf. 



The nettle is just half-way between these 

 two extremes. It does not grow out broad 

 and solitary like the burdock, nor does it 

 creep under the hedges like the little much- 

 divided wayside weeds ; but it springs up 

 erect in tall, thick, luxuriant clumps, growing 

 close together, each stem fringed with a con- 

 siderable number of moderate-sized, heart- 

 shaped, toothed-and-pointed leaves. Such 

 leaves have just room enough to expand and 

 to extract from the air all the carbon they 

 need for their growth, without encroaching 

 upon one another's food supply (for it must 

 always be borne in mind that leaves grow out 

 of the air, not, as most people fancy, out of 

 the ground), and so without the consequent 

 necessity for dividing up into little separate 

 narrow segments. Accordingly, this type of 



