CHAP. II. 
STEM. 
55 
is seldom used ; its adjective being employed instead : thus, 
we say, rami viminei, or caulis vimineus ; and not vimen. 
From this kind of branch, that called a virgate stem, caulis 
virgatus^ differs only in being less flexible and more rigid. A 
young slender branch of a tree or shrub is sometimes named 
virgultum. When the branches diverge nearly at right angles 
from the stem, they are said to be hrachiate. Small stems, 
which proceed from buds formed at the neck of a plant 
without the previous production of a leaf, are called cauliculi. 
Besides these terms, Du Petit Thouars employed certain 
French words in a way peculiar to himself. The first young 
shoot produced during the year by a tree, he named scion ; 
any subsequent shoots formed by the scion, he termed ramilles; 
the shoot that supports the scion was a rameau ; that which 
supports the rameau a hranche ; and the trunk which bears the 
whole the tronc. Link calls a stem which proceeds straight 
from the earth to the summit, bearing its branches on its sides, 
as Pinus, a caddis excurrens, and a stem which at a certain 
distance above the earth breaks out into irregular ramifica- 
tions, a caulis deliquescens. 
From the constitution and ramifications of their branches, 
plants are divided into trees, shrubs, and herbs. If the 
branches are perennial, and supported upon a trunk, a tree 
(arbor) is said to be formed ; for a small tree, the term arhus- 
cuius is sometimes employed. When the branches are peren- 
nial, proceeding directly from the surface of the earth without 
any supporting trunk, we have a shrub (frutex or arhustum^ 
Lat.; and arbrisseau, Fr.), which occasionally, when very small, 
receives the diminutive name of fruticulus. If a shrub is low, 
and very much branched, it is often called dumosus (subst. 
dumus) : this kind of shrub is what the French understand by 
their word buisson. The suffrutex^ under-shrub^ or sous-arbris- 
seau, differs from the shrub, in perishing annually, either 
wholly or in part ; and from the herb, in having branches 
of a woody texture, which frequently exist more than one 
year: such is the Mignonette (Reseda odorota) in its native 
country, or in the state in which it is known in gardens as the 
Tree Mignonette. The under-shrub is exactly intermediate 
between the shrub and the herb. All plants producing shoots 
E 4 
