44 
HOW PLANTS GROW. 
in a Quince-leaf: b, the blade; p, the footstalk ; and st, the stipules, looking like a 
pair of little blades, one on each side of the stalk. But many leaves have no 
stipules ; many have no footstalk, and then the blade sits directly on the stem (or is 
sessile), as in Fig. 138. Some leaves even have no blade; but this is uncommon; 
for in foliage the blade is the essential part. There¬ 
fore, in describing the shape of leaves, it is always 
the blade that is meant, unless something is said to 
the contrary. 
121. Leaves are either simple or compound. They 
are simple when the blade is all of one piece; com- 
pound, when of more than one piece or blade. Fig. 
128 to 132, and 133, are examples of compound leaves, 
the latter very compound, having as many as eighty- 
one little blades. 
122. Their Structure and Vetoing. Leaves are com¬ 
posed of the same two kinds of material as stems (110), 
namely, of wood or fibre, and of cellular tissue. The 
woody or fibrous part makes a framework of ribs 
and veins, which gives the leaf more strength and 
toughness than it would otherwise have. The cellu¬ 
lar tissue forms the green pulp of the leaf. This is 
spread, as it were, over the framework, both above 
and below, and supported by it; and the whole is protected by a transparent skin, 
which is termed the Epidermis. 
123. Ribs. The stouter pieces or timbers of the framework are called Bibs. 
In the leaf of the Quince (Fig. 82), Pear, Oak (Fig. 120), &c. there is only a single 
main rib, running directly through the middle of the blade from base to point; this 
is called the Midrib. But in the Mallow, the Linden (Fig. 83), the Maple (Fig. 
84), and many others, there are three, or five, or seven ribs of nearly the same size. 
The branches of the ribs and the branchlets from them are called 
124. Veins and Vcinlets. The former is the general name for them; but the finest 
branches are particularly called Veinlets. Straight and parallel veins or fine ribs, 
like those of Indian Corn, or of any Grass-leaf, or of the Lily of the Valley (Fig. 
3, 85), are called Nerves. This is not a sensible name, for even if in some degree 
like the nerves of animals in shape, they are not in the least like them in use. 
