210 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



individuals. Sometimes the depression at the 

 base, which makes the heart- shape, is deep and at 

 other times so shallow as to be scarcely percep- 

 tible. One of the two lobes which make the 

 heart-shape ordinarily descends lower than the 

 other, sometimes on one side, the right or the 

 left, and sometimes on the other ; and the 

 edges of both lobes, in what may be called 

 the bay of the depression lying between 

 them, are unindented ; but the whole of the 

 remainder of the leaf-margin is finely and regu- 

 larly serrated. "When the base of the leaf is but 

 slightly depressed it is still free from serratures. 

 The venation is very beautiful, and consists of a 

 mid- vein and branch veins which fork from it to 

 the margin, the two larger of these diverging at an 

 acute angle one on each side from the base of 

 the mid -vein and traversing nearly the entire 

 length of the leaf : the others diverging at acute 

 angles from the mid- vein, higher up, and making 

 for the top of the leaf. All the principal veins 

 are again forked once or twice and give origin to 

 a very elaborate and beautiful ramification vein- 

 lets running across the longitudinal veins in 



