32 
HOW PLANTS GROW YEAR AFTER YEAR. 
tom of each leaf, which is enlarged or thickened for containing it. These thick 
leaf-bases, or scales, crowded together, make up the bulb ; all but its very short stem, 
concealed within, which bears these scales above, and sends down the roots from 
underneath. Fig. 67 shows one of the leaves of the season, taken 
off, with its base cut across, that the thickness may be seen. After 
having done its work, the blade dies off, leaving the thick base as 
a bulb-scale. Every year one or more buds in the centre of the 
bulb grow, feeding on the food laid up in the scales, and making 
the stalk of the season, which bears the flowers, as in Fig. 1, 2. 
78. An Onion is like a Lily-bulb, only each scale or leaf-base \ 1 I I t 
is so wide that it enwraps all within, making coat after coat. 
Bulb and lower Leaves of a Lily. 
Leaf, lower end cut off. 
79. In shrubs and trees a great quantity of nourishment, made the summer 
before, is stored up in the young wood and bark of the shoots, the trunk, and the 
roots. Upon this the buds feed the next spring ; and this enables them to develop 
vigorously, and clothe the naked branches with foliage in a few days ; or with blos- 
soms immediately following, as in the Horsechestnut ; or with blossoms and foliage 
together, as in Sugar Maple ; or with blossoms before the leaves appear, as in Red 
Maples and Elms. The rich mucilage of the bark of Slippery Elm, and the sweet 
spring sap of Maple-trees, belong to this store, deposited in the wood the previous 
summer, and in spring dissolved and rapidly drawn into the buds, to supply the early 
and sudden leafing and blossoming. 
80. In considering plants, as to u how they grow,” it should be noticed that all of 
them, from the Lily of the field to the tree of the forest, teach the same lesson of 
industry and provident preparation. No great result is attained without effort, and 
