THE STEM. 99 



vault from a pillar ; and as the tree grows old, some of its 

 branches getting torn away by winds or falling under the 

 weight of their own fruit, or load of snow, or by natural decay, 

 there remains literally a 'truncated' mass of timber, still 

 bearing irregular branches here and there, but inevitably sug- 

 gestive of resemblance to a human body, after the loss of 

 some of its limbs. 



And to prepare trees for their practical service, what age 

 and storm only do partially, the first rough process of human 

 art does completely. The branches are lopped away, leaving 

 literally the 'truncus' as the part of the tree out of which 

 log and rafter can be cut. And in many trees, it would ap- 

 pear to be the chief end of their being to produce this part of 

 their body on a grand scale, and of noble substance ; so that, 

 while in thinking of vegetable life without reference to its use 

 to men or animals, we should rightly say that the essence of 

 it was in leaf and flower not in trunk or fruit ; yet for the 

 sake of animals, we find that some plants, like the vine, are 

 apparently meant chiefly to produce fruit ; others, like 

 laurels, chiefly to produce leaves ; others chiefly to produce 

 flowers ; and others to produce permanently serviceable and 

 sculptural wood ; or, in some cases, merely picturesque and 

 monumental masses of vegetable rock, " intertwisted fibres 

 serpentine," of far nobler and more pathetic use in then- 

 places, and their enduring age, than ever they could be for 

 material purpose in human habitation. For this central mass 

 of the vegetable organism, then, the English word ' trunk ' 

 and French ' tronc ' are always in accurate scholarship to be 

 retained meaning the part of a tree which remains when its 

 branches are lopped away. 



17. We have now got distinct ideas of four different kinds 

 of stem, and simple names for them in Latin and English, 

 Petiolus, Cymba, Stemma, and Truncus ; Stalk, Leaf-stalk, 

 Stem, and Trunk ; and these are all that we shall commonly 

 need. There is, however, one more that will be sometimes ne- 

 cessary, though it is ugly and difficult to pronounce, and must 

 be as little used as we can. 



And here I must ask you to learn with me a little piece of 



