516 THE ENGLISH ELM. 



buds are brown, pointed, and less rounded than those which contain 

 flowers. When the buds unfold, the scales remain attached to the 

 twig at their base, until they are pushed off by the expanding 

 leaves and the stipules which cover them. 



The true terminal bud dies away, leaving only a scar, and another 

 bud takes its place. The leaf scars are shaped, roughly speaking, like 

 an ellipse, and are marked by a crescent of three dots where the 

 leaf fibres pass into the twig. The buds are covered by about 

 eight overlapping scales. 



The zig-zag line of the twig is accentuated by the buds which 

 mark each projecting point. In the following year, when the buds 

 have produced their shoots, the line of the parent twig is far less 

 noticeable, and, except for its thickness, each portion of it between the 

 lateral shoots might be mistaken lor one arm of a fork produced 

 from a pair of terminal buds. Another reason for this competition 

 between the new shoot and the parent twig is that both twig and 

 shoot often diverge equally from the line of the twig below their 

 point of union. The exactness of the Y so formed will be seen by 

 reference to the diagram of the twigs (page 517), more especially if 

 the portion of the drawing above the Y is covered over. The rule 

 which the twigs observe of keeping in one plane is not adhered to 

 by the subsequent branches, as is the case with the Beech and 

 Hazel. The boughs are often stiffly pendent, and curve upwards and 

 downwards ; nevertheless the ramification of the twig is helpful in 

 studying the more complex arrangement of the branches. 



The new shoots usually curve slightly in a direction away from 

 the apex of the twig, though still in the same plane with it. The 

 twigs as a rule are a dull brown, but they sometimes incline to yellow 

 or red. 



