8TBUCTUBAL BOTANY. 43 



85, Branches may be o^osite (two at a node or knot, 

 on opposite sides) ; alternate (one after another) ; virgate 

 (wand-like, slender, weak, and ascendent) ; verticiUate 

 (whorled, several placed in a circle upon the nodes) ; equal 

 (of equal length); fastigiate (springing from different 

 heights of the stem, but terminating at one and the same 

 level) ; erect (rising straight) ; patulous (spreading) ; hori- 

 zontal (forming a right angle with the stem) .; divaricate 

 (straddling widely) ; pendulous (drooping). 



We must describe a few other sorts of branches called 

 Suckers, Stolons, Offsets, and Gunners. 



The Sucher is a branch rising from some subterranean 

 portion of the plant, bearing leaves above, sending out 

 roots from its own base, separating at length from the 

 mother-plant and becoming independent. The rose and 

 the raspberry have suckers. 



The Stolon is a branch which, having risen from some 

 above-ground portion of the stem, becomes decumbent and 

 trailing, sti-ikes root from near its extremity, and becomes 

 an independent plant. This sort of branches is seen, in 

 the hobble-bush. 



Offsets, like those of the house-leek, are short stolons with 

 a crown of leaves at the extremity. 



Rwnners, like those of the strawberry, are long, filiform, 

 tendril-like, prostrate and leafless branches. 



III. THE LEAVES. 



86. Leaves are peripheric organs of stems and branch- 

 es, protruded from the mesophloeum of the bark in the 

 form of thin, expanded bodies or laminae, usually placed 

 in a rather horizontal direction, and made more or less ri- 

 gid by a framework of woody fibres called ribs and veins. 



