THE STEM 89 
instance, we know that the stem is the part of the plant which 
normally bears leaves and flowers, and if either of these, 
or if the small scales which often take the place of leaves, 
are found growing on any plant structure, we may usually 
take for granted that it is a stem. Then, again, as will be 
shown in the next chapter, buds and branches naturally 
appear only at the nodes, in or near the azil, or inner angle 
made by a leaf with the stem. Hence, if you see any growth 
springing from such a position, you may generally conclude 
it to be a stem. 
tor. Stems as foliage. — The connection between stem 
and leaf is so intimate that we need not be surprised to find 
a frequent interchange of function 
between them, the leaf, or some part 
of it, doing the work of the stem 
(Fig. 98), the stem more often taking 
upon itself the office of the leaf. A 
common example is the garden aspar- 
agus. Examine one of the young 
shoots sold in the market, and notice 
that it bears a number of small scales 
in place of leaves. On an older 
shoot that has gone to seed, the 
green, threadlike appendages, which iat ag — peeyes ee 
are usually taken for foliage, will be (cladophyils) of a ruscus, bear- 
found to spring each from the axil ™% we 
of one of these scales. What, therefore, are we to conclude 
that it is? 
In the butcher’s-broom of Europe, the transformation has 
gone so far that the branches of the stem have assumed the 
flattened appearance of leaves (Fig. 101), but their real 
nature is evident both from their position in the axils of 
leaf scales, and from the fact that they bear flower clusters 
in the axil of a scale on their upper face. Another example 
of this sort of modification is seen in the pretty little myr- 
siphyllum of the greenhouses (wrongly called smilax), which 
