THE SHOOT. 



?>7 



non-botanical student sees and knows of the vegetable world, apart from the 

 larger flowers of phanerogams, are the shoot-formations which we have here in 

 view. They are the so-called stalks or stems, with the leaves situated upon them, 

 and, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, I may add that I shall consider first 

 exclusively those shoots the leaves of which contain chlorophyll. Such leaves are 

 called foliage-leaves, and accordingly the shoots are called foliage-shoots. We have 

 at first to do with these only. A Palm-stem with its huge crown of leaves is thus 



FIG. 27.— W Ofhioglofsitm vitlgatum; B Botryckium Limarui. (Both natural size.) 71» roots; 

 St stem ; bs leaf-stalk ; x point of branching of the leaf, where the sterile lamina (*) separates froiii 

 the fertile one {/). The shoot a.vis remains in the earth ; only its leaves (one each year) come forth to 

 the light 



a foliage-shoot, as is also the upright stem, furnished with large leaves, of a tobacco 

 plant. The foliage-shoot generally becomes branched, i.e. a foliage-shoot produces 

 new shoots at definite points, which in their turn do the same, and so there arises from 

 one shoot step by step a shoot-system, on which every single member is to be dis- 

 tinguished as mother-shoot or daughter-shoot, according as its relation to a preceding 

 or following^ shoot is to be indicated. Mother- and daughter-shoots may be like or 

 unlike between themselves. The Conifera3, e.g. Firs and Pines, as well as other forest 

 trees, and a great number of annual plants, e. g. Thorn-apple, Hemp, &c., are in 



