I 12 



Floivers and t/icir Pcdio-rees. 



c3 



That is why the goose-grass and the other stellate 

 weeds have foliage of this minute character, instead 

 of broad blades like the two seed leaves. But all 

 plants of tangly growth do not attain their end in 

 precisely the same manner. Sometimes one plan 

 succeeds best and sometimes another. In most cases 

 the originally round and simple leaf gets split up by 

 gradual steps into several smaller leaflets. In the 

 stellate tribe, however, the same object is provided 

 for in a widely different fashion. Instead of the 

 primitive leaf dividing into numerous leaflets, a num- 

 ber of organs which were not originally leaves grow 

 into exact structural and functional resemblance to 

 those which were. Strictly speaking, in this whorl 



of six little lance-shaped 

 blades, precisely similar to 

 one another, only two op- 

 posite ones are true leaves ; 

 the other four are in fact, 

 to use a very technical 

 term, interpetiolar stipules. 

 A stipule, you know, of 

 course, is a little fringe or 

 tag which often appears at 

 the point where the leaf stalk joins the stem, and 

 its chief use seems to be to prevent ants and other 



Fig. 25. 

 Interpetiolar Stipu'es. 



