42 



FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



veins in the leaves. If you take a ring of bark off the 

 stem of a growing plant you will not touch these tubes, 

 and therefore the leaves will still receive water from 

 the roots, and will not droop. 



4. Cut, now, the leaf stalk of the vine near the 

 point where it joins the stem, and note the tough 

 tubes that run from the sap-wood into the leaf.* You 



Dauubian reed cut to show the scattered 

 root-sap tubes. 



A Palm tree. 



can see how these tubes serve the leaf both as veins 

 and bones. The stem too is strengthened by the ring 

 of tough tubes, so that, long before the hard heart- 

 wood is formed, the tender looking stem can stand the 

 strain of a storm in a way that fills an architect with 

 wonder and delight. Look at a daffodil bending to a 

 spring breeze ; look at a field of wheat swaying with 

 graceful ease as gust follows gust, and you may have 



* The ring of sap-tubes running up from the stem to the leaf-stalk can be 

 seen very clearly on the leaf-scar of the Virginia creeper. 



