4 i4 THE WALNUT. 



and at isolated and not opposite points. As a result the twig may be 

 alternately rounded on the one side and fluted on the other. Other 

 formations which occur round these scars may be studied in the 

 diagram. Irregularities on the surface of the twig are sometimes due 

 to the multiplicity of buds, which is a feature in the growth of the 

 Walnut. Little raised dots arranged in series will be noticed on the 

 surface of the leaf-scars : on the outermost lobe they take the form 

 of a horse-shoe, and on the inner lobes they form a circle. This 

 may appear a fact so trivial as hardly to deserve comment, but these 

 dots on the leaf-scars are one of the lesser means of recognising a 

 tree in the leafless season. They are the traces left by the fibres of 

 the leaf-stalk which has passed into the twig, and their arrangement is 

 no less characteristic than is the shape of the scar, which represents the 

 plan of the base of the leaf-stalk. In some trees these dots are placed 

 singly, so as to form an outline pattern, in the Ash a horse-shoe, in the 

 Horse-Chestnut the lower half of an oval. The scars of other trees 

 bear these vascular dots in three groups, and each group forms a 

 pattern ; the Walnut, the Chestnut, and the Oak are examples of 

 this class. A common arrangement, shown by the Birch, the Willow, 

 and other trees, is that of three single dots : in other cases the dots 

 are united into crescent or V-shaped forms. Although many trees 

 produce leaf-scars furnished with the same number of dots, the shape 

 and size of the scar is usually helpful in differentiating any one tree, 

 for, as has been said, it preserves a record ok the basal shape of the 

 leaf-stalk, the peculiar lorm of which is often easily recalled. 



These leaf-scars must not be confused with the rings of scars to 

 be found round twigs, and especially noticeable where the growth is 

 dwarfed. These are a record of another kind : they represent the bud 

 scales of past years, and consequently furnish a means of gauging the 



