TEE STEM. 95 



disguised in every possible way, according to the leafs need : 

 in the aspen, the leaf-stalk becomes an absolute vertical plank ; 

 and in the large trees is often almost rounded into the like- 

 ness of a fruit-stalk ; but, in all,* the essential structure is 

 this doubled one ; and in all, it opens at the place where the 

 leaf joins the main stem, into a kind of cup, which holds next 

 year's bud in the hollow of it. 



9. Now there would be no inconvenience in your simply 

 getting into the habit of calling the round petiol of the fruit 

 the 'stalk,' and the contracted channel of the leaf, 'leaf-stalk.' 

 Bat this way of naming them would not enforce, nor fasten 

 in your mind, the difference between the two, so well as if you 

 have an entirely different name for the leaf-stalk. Which is 

 the more desirable, because the limiting character of the leaf, 

 botanically, is (I only learned this from my botanical friend 

 the other day, just in the very moment I wanted it,) that it 

 holds the bud of the new stem in its own hollow, but cannot 

 itself grow in the hollow of anything else ; or, in botanical 

 language, leaves are never axillary, don't grow in armpits, 

 but are themselves armpits ; hollows, that is to say, where they 

 spring from the main stem. 



10. Now there is already a received and useful botanical 

 word, 'cyme' (which we shall want in a little while,) derived 

 from the Greek KV/AO,, a swelling or rising wave, and used to 

 express a swelling cluster of foamy blossom. Connected with 

 that word, but in a sort the reverse of it, you have the Greek 

 * ACU/X/?^,' the hollow of a cup, or bowl ; whence /cv^/foAov, a 

 cymbal, that is to say, a musical instrument owing its tone 

 to its hollowness. These words become in Latin, cymba, and 

 cymbalum ; and I think you will find it entirely convenient 

 and advantageous to call the leaf-stalk distinctively the 'cymba,' 

 retaining the mingled idea of cup and boat, with respect at 

 least to the part of it that holds the bud ; and understanding 

 that it gathers itself into a V-shaped, or even narrowly verti- 

 cal, section, as a boat narrows to its bow, for strength to 

 sustain the leaf. 



* General assertions of this kind must always be accepted under in- 

 dulgence, exceptions being made afterwards. 



