xvi OUTLINES OF BOTANY. 
twiggy or virgate, when at the same time they are slender, stiff, and scarcely 
branched. 
decumbent or ascending, when they spread horizontally, or nearly SO, 
at the base, and then turn upwards and become erect. 
procumbent, when they spread along the ground the whole or the 
greater portion of their length ; diffuse, when at the same time very much and 
rather loosely branched. 
prostrate, when they lie still closer to the ground. 
creeping, when they emit roots at their nodes. This term is also fre- 
quently applied to any rhizomes or roots which spread horizontally. 
tufted or cespitose, when very short, close, and many together from 
the same stock. 
29. Weak climbing stems are said to twine, when they support them- 
selves by winding spirally round any object; such stems are also called 
voluble. When they simply climb without twining, they support them- 
selves by their leaves, or by special clasping organs called tendrils (169), 
or sometimes, like the Ivy, by small root-like excrescences, 
30. Suckers are young plants formed at the end of creeping, under- 
eround rootstocks. Scions, runners, and stolons or stoles, are names given 
to young plants formed at the end or at the nodes (381) of branches or 
stocks creeping wholly or partially aboveground, or sometimes to the creep- 
ing stocks themselves. 
31. A node is a point of the stem or its branches at which one or more 
leaves, branches, or leaf-buds (16) are given off. An internode is the por- 
tion of the stem comprised between two nodes. 
82, Branches or leaves are 
opposite, when two proceed from the same node on opposite sides of 
the stem. 
whorled or verticillate (in a whorl or verticil), when several proceed 
from the same node, arranged regularly around the stem; geminate, ternate, 
Jascicled or fasciculate when two, three, or more proceed from the same 
node on the same side of the stem. A tuft of fasciculate leaves is usually 
in fact an axillary leafy branch, so short that the leaves appear to proceed 
all from the same point. 
alternate, when only one proceeds from each node, one on one side and 
the next above or below on the opposite side of the stem. 
decussate, when opposite, but each pair placed at right angles to the 
next pair above or below it; distichous, when regularly arranged one 
above another in two opposite rows, one on each side of the stem ; tristi- 
chous, when in three rows, etc. (92). 
scattered, when irregularly arranged round the stem ; frequently, fies 
ever, botanists apply the term alternate to all branches or leaves that are 
- neither opposite nor whorled. 
secund, when all start from or are turned to one side of the stem. 
33. Branches are dichotomous, when several times forked, the two 
branches of each fork being nearly equal; trichotomous, when there are 
three nearly equal branches at each division instead of two; but when the 
middle branch is evidently the principal one, the stem is usually said to 
have two opposite branches ; wmbellate, when divided in the same manner 
into several nearly equal branches proceeding from the same point. If 
however the central branch is larger than the two or more lateral ones, 
the stem 1s said to have opposite or whorled branches, as the case may be, 
