98 PROSERPINA. 



14. Returning to our present business of nomenclature, we 

 find the Greek word, ' stemma,' adopted by the Latins, be- 

 coming the expression of a growing and hereditary race ; and 

 the branched tree, the natural type, among all nations, of 

 multiplied families. Hence the entire fitness of the word 

 for our present purposes; as signifying, "a spiral shoot ex- 

 tending itself by branches." But since, unless it is spiral, 

 it is not a stem, and unless it has branches, it is not a stem, 

 we shall still want another word for the sustaining * sceptre ' 

 of a foxglove, or cowslip. Before determining that, however, 

 we must see what need there may be of one familiar to our 

 ears until lately, although now, I understand, falling into 

 disuse. 



15. By our definition, a stem is a spirally bent, essentially 

 living and growing, shoot of vegetation. But the branch of 

 a tree, in which many such steins have their origin, is not, ex- 

 cept in a very subtle and partial way, spiral ; nor, except in 

 the shoots that spring from it, progressive forwards ; it only 

 receives increase of thickness at its sides. Much more, what 

 used to be called the trunk of a tree, in which many branches 

 are united, has ceased to be, except in mere tendency and 

 temper, spiral ; and has so far ceased from growing as to be 

 often in a state of decay in its interior, while the external 

 layers are still in serviceable strength. 



16. If, however, a trunk were only to be defined as an ar- 

 rested stem, or a cluster of arrested stems, we might perhaps 

 refuse, in scientific use, the popular word. But such a defini- 

 tion does not touch the main idea. Branches usually begin 

 to assert themselves at a height above the ground approxi- 

 mately fixed for each species of tree, low in an oak, high in 

 a stone pine ; but, in both, marked as a point of structural 

 change in the direction of growing force, like the spring of a 



name, translating ' Waste -Thistle.' I could not show the variety of the 

 curves of the involucre without enlarging ; and if, on this much in- 

 creased scale, I had tried to draw the flower, it would have taken Mr. 

 Allen and me a good month's more work. And I had no more a month 

 than a life, to spare : so the action only of the spreading flower is indi- 

 cated, but the involucre drawn with precision. 



