SMALL ROCK-GARDENS 105 



admire in it. The satin lining, as is plain to see, 

 comes up and over the front edge of the leaf with 

 a brightness that looks like polished silver against 

 the dull green surface. The edge of each of the 

 seven leaflets is plain for two-thirds of its length, and 

 then breaks into saw-teeth, which increase in size, 

 always silver-edged, till they reach the end and nearly 

 meet. And at this point a surprise awaits one, for 

 instead of the endmost jag, in the base of whose body 

 the mid-rib dies away, being as one would expect the 

 stoutest and largest, it is smaller than the two next 

 on each side, so that the tip of the leaflet has a blunt 

 and even depressed shape ; indeed the tips of the last 

 five saw-teeth are nearly on a line and at a right angle 

 to the mid-rib, and the middle one is always a little 

 the lowest. Then there is another curious thing to 

 notice, that, though not invariable, is so frequent as 

 to seem to be a law in the plant's structure. The 

 normal number of divisions in a full-sized leaf is seven, 

 and they all join together with the exception of the 

 first and last, at a distance of a quarter of an inch 

 from their common insertion into the stalk. But in 

 most cases either the first or the seventh leaflet has a 

 sub-leaflet of its own, usually smaller, but sometimes 

 nearly as large as itself, joined to it much further 

 up, but with its own mid-rib and distinct system of 

 veining. The heads of small green flowers set on 

 lesser stalks that leave the main stem by springing 

 out of a frilled collar half leaf half bract, are not 



