pairing for % gouiig. 
A LESSON IN LEAVES. 
UNCLE MAKE. 
The leaves constitute an Important part ol our 
plants. They have functions which are most es¬ 
sential to plant life, and they render such valuable 
service to man, not only toy furnishing food for 
animals, by absorbing noxious gases, etc., but by 
beautifying the woild with their lovely green and 
their endless variety of size and shape, that they 
deserve our special attention and study. More¬ 
over, leaves occur so plentifully everywhere In 
nature, that the observer has no difficulty In find¬ 
ing “specimens” to study, and, of all botanical 
subjects, the leaf Is one of the easiest to under¬ 
stand, and one that must be understood before the 
pupil can make much advancement In the study of 
botany; for these reasons I have chosen leaves for 
our first lesson. 
on examining a leaf we find that It is made up, 
first, of ribs, or veins, which form the skeleton, or 
frame-work, of the leaf, and that, second, the 
spaces between the velus are filled with a softer 
and more brittle material than the veins ; tills is 
In botanical language termed parenchyma. 
Fig. l. 
All leaves are divided into two great classes ac¬ 
cording to their venation, or the manner In which 
the veins are distributed through the leal, namely, 
parallel-reined leaves and net-veined leaves. These 
two forms of venation represent the two great 
divisions of the vegetable kingdom, the endogens 
and the exogens, {I wish you would remember 
these terms, as they denote the primary classifica¬ 
tion of all plants) which terms relate to the man¬ 
ner of growth of the two classes of plants, the en¬ 
dogens Increasing In thickness from uvihin, while 
the exogens increase in thickness by annual layers 
added to the outside of the trunk. Further, all 
endogens when they germinate have but one seed- 
leaf, while the exogens have two seed-leaves. But, 
to return to our leaves, parallel-veined leaves are 
those In which the veins run In the same direction, 
or parallel with one another as Is the case In Indian 
corn, the grains and in all the grasses] these are 
therefore endogens. 
Fig. 4. 
The net-veined leaves are those In which the 
veins do not run in the same direction, but curve 
about and spread out to all portions of the leaf. 
This kind of leaves you will find In all our trees, 
shrubs, and In all plants with two seed-leaves, In 
other words In all exogens. 
heaving the parallel-veined leaves, as little can 
he said about them that will he of value to you at 
present, we will now take up 
The Net-Veined Leaves. 
A complete leaf consists of three parts as may be 
seen In figure i, the petiole, or leaf stalk, p, the ex¬ 
panded portion called the blade or lamina, b, and 
the two little wing-like appendages, seen at the 
base of the petiole, which are called the stipules. 
Each of these may, indeed, be modified or he en¬ 
tirely wanting, but we will not at present discuss 
such modifications. The net-veined leaves are fur¬ 
ther divided according to the position of the veins 
into two groups, of which I shall first mention 
Feather-Veined Leaves 
or, more technically, pinnately-veined leaves, so 
called from their resemblance to a feather. Fig. 1 
is an example of such a leaf, and the leaves of the 
Chestnut and the Beech are other good examples. 
In this leaf you will notice that a strong, heavy 
vein, forming a continuation of the petiole, runs 
through the whole length of the blade from the 
THE RURA1 
NEW-YORKER 
base to the apex, and divides It Into two parts, 
which, however, are not always equal In size. This 
vein Is called the midvein and from It, on both 
sides, proceed a number of smaller veins which 
again branch, the branches often uniting with one 
a b 
Fig. 
another (anastomosing), forming numerous small 
meshes which are filled with the parenchyma men¬ 
tioned above. The second group of net-veined 
leaves Is represented by fig. 2, which Is a 
Palmately-Velned Leaf, 
having received that name from the resemblance 
it hears lo a hand with the fingers spread. Instead 
of having a strong midvein from which all the 
side veins proceed as in the preceding case, we 
find that in this class of leaves several large veins 
all radiate from one point at the base of the blade, 
it Is still a net-veined leaf, and It shows the anas¬ 
tomosis of the vetnlets perfectly, hut It differs from 
the feather-veined leaf In the disposition of the 
larger veins. The leaves of the Geranium, the 
Hollyhock and many others are good examples of 
palmately-velned leaves. 
So far we have discussed only simple leaves, or 
those consisting ol a single blade, as distinguished 
from compound leaves or those made up of several 
pieces. By referring to Fig. s we notice that there 
is a gradual transition from the simple to the com¬ 
pound form of both plnnately and palmately- 
velned leaves. When a simple leaf Is notched as 
those on the left hand, a a. Fig, 3, it Is called 
lobea; cut a little deeper as b b, it. becomes a cleft 
leaf; notched deeper still as c c, It is parted, and 
divided d, d, when the Incision reaches to the mid 
eln. This brings us to the subject of 
Fig. e>. 
Compound Leaves, 
in which the blade Is divided Into a greater or less 
number of smaller blades, each of which Is called 
a leaflet,. The rose leaf In Fig. 4 Is a compound pin¬ 
nate leaf, and ua it terminates in one leaflet It Is an 
odd-pinnate leaf. Fig. 5 Is a Ucice-pinnate leaf, and 
having two leaflets at each extremity, it Is termed 
sub-kingdoms, exogens and endogens. (There Is 
still another class—fork-veined leaves, found In 
ferns and other cryptogams, hut It is not Import¬ 
ant, so I have said nothing about It). In the net- 
veined leaves are found two principal forms of 
c d 
venation —feather-veined and palmately-veined. 
The parts of a leaf—petiole, blade and stipules. 
The reather-velned leaf has one strong vein, the 
midvein. In the palmately-velned leaf all the 
principal veins radiate from one point. Simple 
leaves are lobed, cleft, parted and divided, the latter 
makes them compound. Two forms of compound 
leaves, pinnate and palmate; parts of same, sti¬ 
pules, petiole, leaflets and stlpels. 
A great deal more remains to be said on the sub¬ 
ject of leaves, hut I fear this lesson would he too 
long If T should add any more. What I have said 
may enable you to get a general Idea of the vena¬ 
tion and classification of leaves, hut even this It 
cannot do unless you study the subject and com¬ 
mit the names to memoiy. Do not persuade your¬ 
selves that the names are hard to learn, for that is 
uot the case, scores of words that, you use In 
your every day speech without thinking anything 
of It are much more difficult both ol spelling and 
pronunciation than any or these. But in order to 
study botany with any success, Whatever, It Is not 
enough to learn a lesson from a book or a paper; 
you must study steelmens from nature. Make a 
collection of different kinds of leaves and try to 
classlfj’ them according to the above descriptions. 
You will learn moie In one thorough lesson of this 
kind than you could learn In a month from the 
book alone. 
"See Gray's Botany,page 160, 
--- 
PUZZLER ANSWERS.-June 28. 
Cboss-Wobd Enigma.—G eorge A. Custer. 
Miscellaneous Enigma.—L et another’s shipwreck 
be your seamark. 
an equally-pinnate leaf, sometimes the leaflets 
have a pair of stipeis at the base of each, which 
answer to the stipules mentioned above as ap¬ 
pearing at the base of the petiole. Fig. 6 Is a 
palmate lear of the Virginia creeper, compound, 
hut the leaflets radiate from one point like the 
veins In a palmately-velned leaf. 
Now, to recapitulate: I stated first that there 
are two great divisions of leaves—parallel-veined 
and net-veined leaves, which represent the two 
Diagonal Puzzle:— 
P 
E I 
B u N 
S o 1 E 
1 n 
M 1 
M i 
O r 
N a 
s s 
K 
rat 
P 
a L 
i v E 
Primal* form “ Persimmon. 
Diagonals form “ Pineapple." 
IS FAITH BLIND? 
The following words of an eminent divine not 
long dead are quoted with high commendation In 
an obituary, as setting forth the central Idea of his 
religious belief: 
“ The first and most Indispensable condition of 
piety Is submission—blind, absolute, entire sub¬ 
mission of the intellect, the conscience, the. life, to 
God. This is blind, but not irrational, it is the 
submission of a sightless child to an all-seeing 
Fatber; or a feeble, beclouded intelligence to the 
Infinite Intelligence.” 
What la meant by a ‘-blind, absolute, entire sub¬ 
mission of the InteUect’’ to God 7 What is the in¬ 
tellect. ? It Is the faculty or faculties by which we 
apprehend truth. If God made the Intellect, that 
Is what he made it for. When a visible object Is 
placed before the open eye, the eye perceives the 
object. When Intelligible truth Is placed before 
the intellect, the Intellect perceives the truth. That 
Is the function of the intellect. There Is no more 
reason, therefore, tor a “ blind, absolute, entire 
submission” of the mental vision than of the phys¬ 
ical vision to God. 
We take it for granted that the physical sight 
was given us to see with; that we honor the Giver 
not by disusing It, or by speaking contemptuously 
of it, hut by using It and prizing It. We suppose 
that it is by keeping our eyes open and trusting 
the evidence they give us that we walk most safe¬ 
ly. What sort of sense would there he iu talking 
About a blind submission of the eyesight to God? 
It might mean keeping the eyes closed and only 
opening them when vve are supermini rally ad¬ 
monished to do so. A man might Imagine that he 
was honoring God in the use of hls eyes by shut¬ 
ting them, and refusing to open them at all unless 
miraculously ordered to open them. Blind sub¬ 
mission of the eyesight to God might also mean a 
persistent refusal to believe our eyes. A man 
might say, •* My eyes tell me that that is a tree be¬ 
fore my face, hut I shall not rely.upon their report. 
If God gives me some miraculous reason for believ¬ 
ing that it Is a tree I will believe that it Is a tree; 
If, on the other hand, He gives me some super¬ 
natural assurance that the thing which looks like 
a tree Is a house 1 will believe that it is a house. To 
rely upon the evidence of my eyes in a matter like 
this would be presumptuous; ‘blind, absolute, 
entire submission ’ of the eyesight to God is the 
only safe rule,” 
That would be curious reasoning respecting the 
bodily senses. That would he a strange way of 
showing our respect for Him who gave us these 
organs of vision. We may well ask Him to show 
us how to use our eyes, and to help us to under¬ 
stand the meaning of the things we see; but to 
assume that the eyes which He has given us to 
see with cannot he trusted Is a strange way of ex¬ 
pressing our confidence In Him. Would not a 
wide-awake and open-eyed use of the power to see 
evince a truer reverence and a more genuine faith 
than a blind submission of this faculty to God, 
whatever that may mean 7 
Now we fail to see any reason why this argument 
does not apply just as well to the mental sight as 
to the bodily sight. The Intellect was made to be 
used just as truly as the eyes were. We do not 
honor God by disusing It or by distrusting it any 
more than vve honor him by disusing or distrusting 
our eyes. The intellect is not Infallible; It some¬ 
times falls Into error, but so do our eyes sometimes 
deceive us; we keep on using and trusting our eyes, 
and we have Just as much reason to keep on using 
and trusting our intellects. There are many sub¬ 
jects of thought that are beyond the comprehension 
of our minds, and there are many objects in the uni¬ 
verse that are too far away or too small for our eyes 
to see; hut that Is no reason why we may not see 
and know things that come within the range of 
sight, or knowledge. We need the help of the In¬ 
finite Wisdom In using our mental vision, and in 
understanding the t hings that, we see and their 
relations—but. it Is in using the mind’s eye, and 
not in closing it, nor in refusing to accept without 
supernatural Indorsement the evidence that it 
gives us that vve prove our reverence and our faith. 
But this divine goes on to say that such submis¬ 
sion Is “blind but not Irrational.” if it Is not 
Irrational to shut the eye that was made for see¬ 
ing, what Is irrational 7 
It Is, however, a “ sightless ” eye. That seems 
to alter the case. Man la the “ sightless child ” of 
an “ all-seeing Father.” It must be mental vision 
that is here denied to man. To say that he 19 
sightless Is the same as to say that he Is destitute 
of Intellect. Of course, if he has no InteUect It 
may he well for him blindly' and absolutely and 
entirely to submit his InteUect to God if he can. 
But how can lie ? How Is It possible to submit 
to God that which he does not possess ? 
This statement, however, appears to be too 
strong, and It ta qualified in the next sentence. 
It is not a creature absolutely sightless, but a 
“ feeble, beclouded Intelligence ” that is caUed 
thus to submit Itself. If an Intelligence is “fee¬ 
ble and beclouded,” then, the only right thing for 
it to do Is blindly and absolutely to submit Itself 
to God. We do not believe that God desires that 
any Intelligence should do anything oi the kind. 
No matter how feeble our povvere may be, God 
wants us to use them, diligently and trustfully; 
he does not want us to disown them or despise 
them. The feeblest mental powers are Invigor¬ 
ated by exercise. Faithful use, not blind submis¬ 
sion, Is their proper regimen. “ The word “ blind ” 
has no application to any Intellectual act required 
of men by God. It Is casting contempt upon His 
most precious gilt to speak of the mind of man in 
the tone In which It la spoken of In this extract. If 
God had wanted blind votaries he would not have 
given ns tnluds. We prove our faith In Him not 
by reviling but by using the faculties that He has 
given us.—Sunday Afternoon. 
-- *-*—* - 
Religion Is the best amor that a man can have, 
but It Is the worst cloak.— Bunyan 
