THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
, in our climate (Fig. 23), bear 
, the name of trunk. The 
stems of the Gramine (grass 
family), commonly cylindrical, 
and nearly always indented by 
annular knots from which the 
leaves spring, ‘are called the 
culm (Fig. 24) ; those of Palm- 
trees, which resemble columns 
crowned with a chaplet of leaves, 
arecalled stipes (Fig 25)—terms, 
however, which botanists rarely 
employ. 
The thickness and height of 
stems vary very much among 
vegetables. Whilst the trunk of 
certain exotic trees, as the mon- 
strous Baobab, attains gigantic 
dimensions, the stems of many of 
our spring plants, as those of the 
| \ Sassifrage, and the Early Whit- 
\\ i || low grass (Drabaverna), scarcely 
YW | | attain the thickness of a thread. 
// “While crossing the Rio Claro, 
\ | // a river in the province of Goyas, 
\ | # in Brazil,” says A. de Saint 
Hilaire, “I perceived growing 
on a rock a plant not more than 
three lines in size, which I took 
at first for a moss. It was, 
however, a species of a superior 
order, and provided with a re- 
productive apparatus like our 
oaks and beeches. By the side 
of it gigantic trees reared their 
majestic heads to the height of 
a hundred feet.” 
Hie, Achim ot the Bre, Accordingly as stems last one 
y 
: 
