4:0 FAMILIAR LESSOXS IN BOTANY. 



tilings hold in their liands the issues of life and death. 

 If tliey were to invert their processes, reverse their actions 

 one month, the earth would be one vast charnel-house. 

 You cannot understand all this now, but I want you to 

 think about it, and when we come to the chapter upon 

 how plants live and what they feed upon, you will see for 

 yourself that what I have just told you is true. 



84. To recapitulate : Leaves are sometimes supplied with 

 icndriU, siijmles^ bracts, tliorns, prickles, hairs, scales, and 

 glands. Stipules are immediately below the leaf. Bracts 

 are upon the flower-stalk; tendrils are from the extremities 

 and sides of the stem, sometimes from the apex of the 

 leaves. These, you remember, were spoken of in our talk 

 about the epidermis. 



CHAPTER V. 



TJie Flower. 



85. The flower is the crowning grace of Nature. It is 

 this organ, or rather combination of organs, which is dis- 

 tinguished by its color, form, and odor from the other 

 parts of the plant, and in whose production Nature seems 

 to have emptied her store-house of beauty and variety. 

 These " voiceless preachers " silence by a look those ex- 

 treme utilitarians who declare that the merely beautiful is 

 unnecessary waste. They answer, in language more potent 

 than words, that loveliness has high and holy uses, and 

 teach lessons which could never be enforced without them. 

 They cause gratitude and love to spring eternal in the 

 human breast, and suggest to the weary wanderer consol- 



84. Tell me again the various appendages of leaves. Where are they found ? 

 Where did we lean! of them before ? 

 S5m What is the ?ubject of Chapter V. ? By what is the flower distinguished ? 



