BUDS AND BRANCHES 135 
less zigzag axis that generally characterizes trees of these 
species. (Fig. 153.) 
152. Forked stems.— Take a twig of buckeye, horse- 
chestnut, or lilac, and make a care- 
ful sketch of it, showing all the 
points that were brought out in the 
examination of your previous speci- 
men. Which is the larger, the lat- 
eral or the terminal bud? Is their 
arrangement alternate or opposite? 
What was the leaf arrangement? 
Count the leaf traces in the scars; 
are they the same in all? If all the LZ 
buds had developed into branches, + Jhb 
how many would spring from a ">= 
node? Look for the rings of scars gp Wey e are ee beds 
left by the last season’s bud scales. failing to develop ; 6, as it would 
‘ e if all the buds were to live. 
Do you find any twig of more 
than one year’s growth, as measured by the scar rings? 
Look down between the forks of a branched stem for a 
round scar. This is not a leaf scar, as we can see by its 
shape, but one left by the last season’s 
flower cluster. The flower, as we know, 
dies after perfecting its fruit, and so a 
flower bud cannot continue the growth of 
its axis as other buds do, but has just the op- 
posite effect and stops all further growth in 
that direction. Hence, stems and branches 
that end in a flower bud cannot continue 
E to develop their main axis, but their growth 
Fic. 154.—Two- iS usually carried on, in alternate-leaved 
forked twig of horse- stems, by the nearest lateral bud, or in 
chestnut. a " 
opposite-leaved ones, by the nearest pair 
of buds. In the first case there results the zigzag spray 
characteristic of such trees as the beech and elm (Fig. 155, 
B); in the second, the two-forked, or dichotomous branching, 
