14 



THE LIFE OF THE PLANT 



First in the series are several scales darkly coloured, 

 short, obtuse, almost round in shape (fig. 4). Then 



this shape becomes 

 more and more 

 elongated and the 

 colouring passes in- 

 to green ; we notice 

 on the top of one 

 of these scales an 

 indefinite rather 

 crumpled protuber- 

 ance, which further 

 on increases in size 

 and opens out. 



This protuberance 

 is a real slightly 

 wrinkled little leaf. 

 The deeper within 

 the bud the more 

 clearly this pro- 

 tuberance reveals 

 itself as the part 

 of the leaf which 

 is called the lamina, 

 Fig. 4. while the distended 



part of the first 

 scales becomes narrower and more elongated, taking 

 the true stem-like form of a petiole (fig. 4, horse- 

 chestnut, and fig. 5, currant bush). This is therefore 

 the same phenomenon as in the young ash : there the 

 cotyledon and here the scale passes into a leaf, through 

 a graded series of intermediate forms. And again the 

 suspicion arises that these are one and the same 

 organ, only modified in appearance according to their 

 special functions. 



Having thus started with a seed or with a bud, we 

 have arrived at the typical leaf which makes up all the 



