76 Keeble . — The Hanging Foliage of 
Were this water not removed, transpiration and perhaps 
other functions of the leaf would, Stahl holds, be seriously 
checked. 
Although, in experiments which I made, removal of the 
long apices from the leaves of Amherstia nobilis did not 
seem to impede the rapid drying of the leaf after rain, 
if it be allowed that some means of protection against pro- 
longed wetting is needed, it might have been supposed, in the 
case of Amherstia nobilis , that such a protection would have 
been afforded in the mature leaf by the permanence of these 
hairs which, as stated, are present in the young. These, 
however, disappear. If Stahl’s view of the value of these 
‘ Traufelspitzen ’ be correct, then the hairs present in the 
young leaf have some other function, viz. protection against 
light or heat, and are superfluous as a means of protection 
against wetting. 
As an alternative it may be suggested, with due deference 
to the distinguished author of ‘ Regenfall und Blattgestalt,’ 
that these mature leaves of Amherstia nobilis have no especial 
need for a means of ‘ running off’ of water from their surfaces. 
An observation of a detail may be mentioned here as shedding 
some light on the question of ‘Traufelspitzen,’ and also on 
the need for protection of the young leaves of Amherstia 
nobilis . 
Three or four specimens of this tree grow, and grow well, in 
the Botanical Gardens at Perideniya. The longish apices 
(Traufelspitzen) of the mature leaves are almost without 
exception withered and dead. Now these apices consist of 
tissue which has not become so tough or coriaceous as the 
rest of the leaf. Nevertheless, whilst the leaves hang, the 
tips remain uninjured ; when the leaves rise up and expose 
themselves to the sun these thin extremities are rapidly 
killed. 
Whether the trees in the Perideniya gardens are growing 
under conditions similar to those which their ancestors in 
Tenasserim enjoyed is, of course, open to doubt; still the 
withering of the tips shows, and no more is urged here, that 
