MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



making climbers, such as convolvulus, black 

 bindweed, black bryony, and bittersweet, 

 and you will recognize at once how different 

 modes of life almost necessarily beget 

 different types of leaf-arrangement. 



Nay, more. If you watch the ivy itself 

 in its various stages, you will see how the 

 self-same plant adapts its different parts 

 from time to time to every variation in the 

 surrounding conditions. Here in the copse, 

 left to itself, as nature made it, it spreads 

 vaguely along the ground at first with its 

 lower branches, developing small leaves as 

 it goes, narrow-lobed and angular, which are 

 pressed flat against the soil in such a way 

 as to utilize all possible air and sunshine. 

 They cover the ground without mutual inter- 

 ference. And they are evergreen, too, so 

 as to make the best of the scanty light that 

 struggles through the trees in early spring 

 and late autumn, while the oaks and ashes 

 are all bare and leafless. But the main 

 stem, prying about, soon finds out for itself 



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