STEMS AND BRANCHES AND THEIR USES 203 



as a rule, most of the chlorophyl is contained in the cells of 

 the leaves, which make much the greater part of the plant's 

 carbohydrate food, the work of the stem being mainly other 

 than that of food-making. There are plants, however, of 

 which the asparagus (Fig. 124) is a familiar example, whose 



FIG. 124. The 

 tip of an asparagus 

 shoot, showing the 

 scale leaves in 

 whose axils clusters 

 of slender green 

 branches will later 

 appear. 



FIG. 125. A shoot of Ruscus, with 

 flat, green, leaf-like branches. Notice 

 that these branches in turn may bear 

 leaves and flowers. After Kerner. 



leaves are reduced to scales or similar small structures, and 

 whose stems and branches remain green and do most of the 

 work of carbohydrate manufacture. When the young 

 shoots of asparagus first push out of the ground, they bear 

 only scale-like leaves ; but if they are allowed to grow tall, 

 from the axils of these leaves there grow clusters of fine, short, 

 leafless green branches. Some plants, like the common 

 greenhouse " smilax," have green branches that are broad 



