108 PROSERPINA. 



daily bread ; and let the horizontal line be the surface of the 

 ground. Then the plant has no stem, or an underground one. 

 But if the three leaves rise above the ground, as in Fig. 17, 

 they must reach their roots by elongating their stalks, and 

 this elongation is the stem of the plant. If the outside leaves 

 grow last, and are therefore youngest, the plant is said to 

 grow from the outside. You know that 4 ex' means out, and 

 that 'gen' is the first syllable of Genesis (or creation), there- 

 fore the old botanists, putting an o between the two syllables, 

 called the plants whose outside leaves grew last, Ex-o-gens. If 

 the inside leaf grows last, and is youngest, the plant was said 

 to grow from the inside, and from the Greek Endon, within, 

 called an ' Endo-gen.' If these names are persisted in, the 



FIG. 16. FIG. 17. 



Greek botanists, to return the compliment, will of course call 

 Endogens 'Ivo-etS^SopvtScs, and Exogens "Ouro-etS/3opvt8cs. In 

 the Oxford school, they will be called simply Inlaid and Out- 

 laid. 



3. You see that if the outside leaves are to grow last, they 

 may conveniently grow two at a time ; which they accordingly 

 do, and exogens always start with two little leaves from their 

 roots, and may therefore conveniently be called two-leaved ; 

 which, if you please, we will for our parts call them. The 

 botanists call them ' two-suckered,' and can't be content to call 

 them that in English ; but drag in a long Greek word, mean- 

 ing the fleshy sucker of the sea-devil, ' cotyledon,' which, 

 however, I find is practically getting shortened into ' cot,' and 

 that they will have to end by calling endogens, monocots, and 



