FLOWER-LAND. 



venation very well. Here is a picture of it (Fig. 

 57> B) ; but I want you to try and find it, for a picture, 

 though it shows you its venation very well, does not 

 give you at all a good idea of its beauty. It has 

 been thought to be like a cloak or mantle, and the 

 plant is called from this fancied resemblance of its 

 leaves, the lady's mantle. It has small greenish 

 clustered flowers. When you see the plant on a fine 

 spring morning, with glittering drops of water on its 

 beautiful green leaves, I think you will admire it very 

 much. You will find other examples of this venation 

 in the leaves of the maple, the sycamore, or the 

 common currant. Leaves with the main veins thus 

 spread out remind you somewhat of a hand with out- 

 spread fingers. This is why this kind of venation is 

 said to be palmate, and the leaves in which it occurs 

 are called palmate veined. 



You will see quite a different pattern of venation in 

 a leaf of the beech or elm ( Fig. 5 7, A). Let us pick one. 

 Here you see one main vein passing all the way up 

 the middle of the leaf, and from which branch veins 

 are given off on both sides. This is supposed to 

 remind one of the shape and arrangement in a 

 feather, with its mid rib and many feathery branches, 

 so this kind of venation is called pinnate* 



Now we will pick a single leaf of the lesser 



* From the Latin "pinna" a feather. 



