The TOHiG HATUEAUST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 48. NOYEMBEE, 1883. Yol. 4. 



LEAVES. 



By J. P. SouTTER, Bishop Auckland. 



(( TXTHEN lyart leaves bestrew the 

 yird. 



Or wavering like the baukie bird, 



Bedim cauld Boreas' blast. 

 When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte, 

 And infant frosts begin to bite, 



Wi' hoary cranreuch drest." 



The shortening days and lengthen- 

 ing nights, the slanting rays of the 

 sun, with drenching rains and boister- 

 ous gales, announce the advent of 

 autumn and herald the approach of 

 winter. Even now "the melancholy 

 days have come, the saddest of the 

 year," which are always associated 

 with death and decay, as the merry 

 spring-time is with life and growth. 

 Of the various changing phases of 

 nature none are more evidently and 

 distinctly apparent than the "fall of 

 the leaf," and nothing is perhaps more 

 wonderful than to watch the .s^rowth, 

 maturity,, decay, and fall of a leaf, with 

 the marvellous recuperative and in- 

 herent energy which year by year 

 clothes a gigantic tree with the enor- 

 mous mass of verdant drapery, and 



anon to see it stripped bare and naked, 

 and yet to feel assured that returning 

 cycles will renew its lovely dress. 

 Hence leaves are defined to be appen- 

 dages of plants, because under ordinary 

 circumstances they may be, and are, 

 dispensed -with or thrown off, the plant 

 suffering nothing by the loss. In its 

 earliest beginnings, in the germinating 

 seed, or at the growing apex of a plant, 

 a leaf appears first as a small knob or 

 protuberance of cellular tissue, which, 

 however, very soon expands into a 

 flattened body traversed by numerous 

 vascular bundles which are known as 

 the veins : these form the framework, 

 which, when the softer parts have 

 decayed, may be seen to perfection as 

 the lace-like skeletons which may be 

 picked up abundantly in damp woods 

 in spring. Normally, leaves appear in 

 acropetal succession, that is, the young- 

 est are always nearest the extremity of 

 the stem ; and as whilst they are being 

 produced the stem itself is constantly 

 lengthening, they become arranged 

 with great regularity on the stem or 

 branch. Thus in the oak they follow 

 a certain spiral course, so that tracing 



