14 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



New Forest and similar localities attains its greatest size and 

 luxuriance. The Heather is a small perennial shrub with a 

 woody stern and evergreen leaves. If a plant is dug up it will be 

 found to send down a stout, tapering tap-root from which fine 

 roots pass off on all sides into the soil. There is no single main 

 stem, but the shoot system consists of numerous woody branches, 

 which in well-grown plants attain a height of one to two feet. 

 The older portions of the stems are leafless, and the surface is 

 brown owing to the protective layer of cork. 



On following up any twig we come to the region which has 

 grown in the present season. The thin stem is here reddish or 

 less commonly green in colour, and the surface when looked at 

 with a lens is seen to be studded with small white hairs. The 

 small green leaves are borne in pairs, and, as is so commonly the 

 case, the successive pairs alternate. The leaves borne on the 

 main shoots, though small, are larger than those on the lateral 

 shoots. The pairs also stand at a greater distance from one 

 another, and show the internodes more clearly. The form of the 

 leaf is peculiar. It is short and needle-shaped, narrowing from 

 the base to a blunt tip. The leaf-blade is triangular in cross 

 section, with a flat surface turned towards the stem and a median 

 ridge on the lower side. This ridge bears a whitish line or groove, 

 and this is the whole extent of the true lower surface of the leaf, 

 which is greatly reduced in comparison with the upper surface. 

 Below its attachment to the stem the leaf base continues on either 

 side into a tail-like appendage lying close against the surface. 

 At the base of the year's growth are a number of smaller leaves, 

 closely crowded on the stem. These occupy the same position 

 relatively to the leaves above as do the bud scales in the shoots 

 of most of our shrubs and trees, but do not here enclose and 

 protect the shoot. 



All the buds standing in the axils of the leaves of a main shoot 

 develop further in the first season. Sometimes all of them grow 

 into short vegetative shoots with four rows of crowded small green 

 leaves. More commonly vegetative shoots of this kind occupy 

 the axils of the lower leaves on the shoot, and above this come 

 flowers either borne on axillary shoots or singly in the axils of 

 the leaves. The region of the main shoot above the flowers has 



