212 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
beneath that snow covering, either in seeds or underground 
buds, and they will come up again in their old haunts, delicate, 
beautiful, uninjured as ever ! Who thus protects folded leaves 
and sleeping flowerets ? 
Even in "winter, Nature with unwearied hand is ever pre- 
paring food for her plant-children, when they shall awaken 
from theh slumbers. Frost and snow are of great service : 
the former breaks the hard masses, and renders the soil loose 
and porous; the latter spreads a warm covering over the 
landscape, thus protecting the numerous seeds of annuals 
and the underground stems of the perennials. Snow con- 
tains ammonia and other nutritive gases, and when it melts, 
the plants drink in its nourishing constituents. Thus when 
winter covers the earth with snow-storms, Nature is really 
benevolent, although apparently stern and unpitying. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE IX. 
Fig. 1. One year’s growth of beech-tree ( Fagus sylvatica). 
a. Annular or ring-like scars, left on the hark by the winter leaves or 
bud-scales. 
s. Cicatrix, or leaf-scar, left on the bark by the summer leaves. 
Fig. 2. Two shoots of the horse-chestnut tree (^2 ? sculus liippocastanum ) placed 
together for comparison. The left-hand shoot is the growth of a 
single year, the right-hand shoot is the growth of ten years. 
a. Scars left by winter leaves. 
s. Scars left by summer leaves. 
Fig. 3. A twig of the tulip-poplar ( Liriodendron tulipifera). 
s. Cicatrix, or leaf-scar, left by the summer leaves. 
b. Linear scar left by stipular leaves, a peculiar modification of the 
winter-leaf. 
c. A closed stipular bud. 
cl. An open stipular bud, with the two stipules reflected downwards, to 
show — • 
l. The lamina or blade of the embryo summer leaf inverted on its 
petiole, or its position whilst inclosed or packed away within the 
stipular leaves. 
