110 PROSERPINA. 



and essentially, therefore, distinguished from the systematic 

 anatomy of a truly branched tree. Of these presently ; we 

 must go on by very short steps : and I find no step can be 

 taken without check from existing generalizations. Sowerby's 

 definition of Monocotyledons, in his ninth volume, begins thus: 

 "Herbs, (or rarely, and only in exotic genera,) trees, in which 

 the wood, pith, and bark are indistinguishable." Now if there 

 be one plant more than another in which the pith is defined, 

 it is the common Rush ; while the nobler families of true herbs 

 derive their principal character from being pithless altogether ! 

 We cannot advance too slowly. 



5. In the families of one-leaved plants in which the young 

 leaves grow directly out of the old ones, it be- 

 comes a grave question for them whether the old 

 ones are to lie flat or edgeways, and whether they 

 must therefore grow out of their faces or their 

 edges. And we must at once understand the way 

 they contrive it, in either case. 



Among the many forms taken by the Arethusan 

 leaf, one of the commonest is long and gradually 

 tapering, much broader at the base than the 

 point. We will take such an one for examination, 

 and suppose that it is growing on the ground as 

 in Fig. 20, with a root to its every fibre. Cut out 

 a piece of strong paper roughly into the shape 

 of this Arethusan leaf, a, Fig. 21. Now suppose 

 the next young leaf has to spring out of the front 

 of this one, at about the middle of its height. 

 Give it two nicks with the scissors at b b ; then 

 roll up the lower part into a cylinder, (it will 

 Fl - ^ overlap a good deal at the bottom,) and tie it 

 fast with a fine thread : so, you will get the form at c. Then 

 bend the top of it back, so that, seen sideways, it appears as 

 at d, and you see you have made quite a little flower-pot to 

 plant your new leaf in, and perhaps it may occur to you that 

 you have seen something like this before. Now make another, 

 a little less wide, but with the part for the cylinder twice as 

 long, roll it ?i in the same way, and slio it inside the other, 



