THE LEAF. 39 



tree becomes literally a fountain, of which the springing 

 streamlets are clothed with new-woven garments of green tis- 

 sue, and of which the silver spray stays in the sky, a spray, 

 now, of leaves. 



19. That is the gist of the matter ; and a very wonderful 

 gist it is, to my mind. The secret and subtle descent the 

 violent and exulting resilience of the tree's blood, what 

 guides it ? what compels ? The creature has no heart to 

 beat like ours ; one cannot take refuge from the mystery in a 

 * muscular contraction.' Fountain without supply playing 

 by its own force, for ever rising and falling all through the 

 days of Spring, spending itself at last in gathered clouds of 

 leaves, and iris of blossom. 



Very wonderful ; and it seems, for the present, that we 

 know nothing whatever about its causes ; nay, the strangeness 

 of the reversed arterial and vein motion, without a heart, does 

 not not seem to strike anybody. Perhaps, however, it may 

 interest you, as I observe it does the botanists, to know that 

 the cellular tissue through which the motion is effected is 

 called Parenchym, and the woody tissue, Bothrenchym ; and 

 that Parenchym is divided, by a system of nomenclature which 

 " has some advantages over that more commonly in use," * 

 into merenchyma, coiienchyma, ovenchyma, atractenchyma, 

 cyliiidrenchyma, colpenchyma, cladenchyma, and prisnien- 

 chyma. 



20. Take your laurel branch into your hand again. There 

 are, as you must well know, innumerable shapes and orders 

 of leaves ; there are some like claws ; some like fingers, and 

 some like feet ; there are endlessly cleft ones, and endlessly 

 clustered ones, and inscrutable divisions within divisions of 

 the fretted verdure ; and wrinkles, and ripples, and stitch- 

 ings, and hemmings, and pinchings, and gatherings, and 

 crumplings, and clippings, and what not. But there is noth- 

 ing so constantly noble as the pure leaf of the laurel, bay, 

 orange, and olive ; numerable, sequent, perfect in setting, 



* Lindley, 'Introduction to Botany,' vol. i., p. 21. Th terms 

 " wholly obsolete " says an authoritative botanic friend. Thank 

 Heaven ! 



