About Green Leaves 191 



insects, so tiny and so short-lived, have gone on 

 building, till they have made countless islands in 

 the purple tropical ocean — islands so large that 

 villages can be built upon them. 



A tree with its million leaves is in some ways 

 like a bank of living coral. It is a great colony 

 of workers, each doing its part, during its short 

 life, to add to a structure which was begun long 

 ago, and will continue to grow for many years 

 after the worker is dead. The structure which 

 all the leaves are helping to build is the woody 

 part of the tree — its trunk, boughs, and roots. 



Each summer's leaves give up their task at 

 summer's close — but the work is taken up again 

 by a new generation of leaves the next spring. 



Each leaf does its own work in its own place, 

 yet all the little efforts, put together, add to the 

 size and strength of the tree. 



The summer work of the leaves does not begin 

 at once. For the first few days after they have 

 cast off the enfolding bud-scales they " just grow," 

 like Topsy. During this growing time they are 

 fed on supplies gathered and put away last year. 



Most of the trees turned these savings into 

 starch grains — convenient for storing. But 

 young shoots could not be nourished on such dry 

 food as this ; so the starch is changed, when spring 

 comes, into fluid " glucose," and this is taken up 

 by the mounting sap and carried into the opening 

 buds. 



