104 PROSERPINA. 



of annual stems ; of which Line-studies II., III., and IV. are ex- 

 amples ; reduced copies, all, from the beautiful Flora Danica. 

 But after giving two whole lovely long summer days, under the 

 Giesbach, to the blue scabious, (' Devil's bit,') and getting in 

 that time, only half-way up it, I gave in ; and must leave the 

 work to happier and younger souls. 



25. For these flowering stems, therefore, possessing nearly 

 all the complex organization of a tree, but not its permanence, 

 we will keep the word * virga ; ' and ' virgula ' for those that 

 have no leaves. I believe, when we come to the study of leaf- 

 order, it will be best to begin with these annual virgse, in 

 which the leaf has nothing to do with preparation for a next 

 year's branch. And now the remaining terms commonly ap- 

 plied to stems may be for the most part dispensed with ; but 

 several are interesting, and must be examined before dis- 

 missal. 



26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use so 

 often, 'stalk,' has not been got to the roots of, yet. It comes 

 from the Greek o-re'Aexos, (stelechos,) the 'holding part' of a 

 tree, that which is like a handle to all its branches ; ' stock ' 

 is another form in which it has come down to us : with some 

 notion of its being the mother of branches : thus, when Athe- 

 na's olive was burnt by the Persians, two days after, a shoot a 

 cubit long had sprung from the ' stelechos,' of it. 



27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the mod- 

 ern scholarly and professorial mind than ' stipend.' (I have 

 twice a year at present to consider whether I am worth mine^ 

 eent with compliments from the Curators of the University 

 chest). Now, this word comes from 'stips,' small pay, which 

 itself comes from ' stipo,' to press together, with the idea of 

 small coin heaped up in little towers or piles. But with the 

 idea of lateral pressing together, instead of downward, we get 

 ' stipes,' a solid log ; in Greek, with the same sense, OTVTTOS, 

 (stupos,) whence, gradually, with help from another word 

 meaning to beat, (and a side-glance at beating of hemp,) we 

 get our 'stupid,' the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and 

 the plain English ' stump.' 



Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins 



