CHAPTER IX.

Fig. 13. Burdock leafFig. 13.

6. The outline of it in Sowerby is not an intelligent one, and I have not time to draw it but in the rudest way myself; Fig. 13,a; with perspectives of the elementary form below,b,c, andd. By help of which, if you will construct a burdock leaf in paper, my rude outline (a) may tell the rest of what I want you to see.

Fig. 14. Create a burdock leaf.Fig. 14.

Take a sheet of stout note paper, Fig. 14, A, double it sharply down the centre, by the dotted line, then give it the two cuts ataandb, and double those pieces sharply back, as at B; then, opening them again, cut the wholeinto the form C; and then, pulling up the cornersc d, stitch them together with a loose thread so that the pointscanddshall be within half an inch of each other; and you will have a kind of triangular scoop, or shovel, with a stem, by which you can sufficiently hold it, D.

7. And from this easily constructed and tenable model, you may learn at once these following main facts about all leaves.

[I.] That they are not flat, but, however slightly, always hollowed into craters, or raised into hills, in one or another direction; so that any drawable outline of them does not in the least represent the real extent of their surfaces; and until you know how to draw a cup, or a mountain, rightly, you have no chance of drawing a leaf. My simple artist readers of long ago, when I told them to draw leaves, thought they could do them by the boughfull, whenever they liked. Alas, except by old William Hunt, and Burne Jones, I've not seen a leaf painted, since those burdocks of Turner's; far less sculptured—though one would think at first that was easier! Of which we shall have talk elsewhere; here I must go on to note fact number two, concerning leaves.

8. [II.] The strength of their supporting stem consists not merely in the gathering together of all the fibres, but in gathering them essentially into the profile of the letter V, which you will see your doubled paper stem has; and of which you can feel the strength and use, in your hand, as you hold it. Gather a common plantain leaf, and look at the way it puts its round ribs together at the base, and you will understand the matter at once. The arrangement is modified and disguised in every possible way, according to the leaf's need: in the aspen, the leaf-stalk becomes an absolute vertical plank; and in the large trees is often almost rounded into the likeness of a fruit-stalk;—but, in all,[36]the essential structure is this doubled one; and in all, it opens at the place where the leaf joins the main stem, into a kind of cup, which holds next year's bud in the hollow of it.

9. Now there would be no inconvenience in your simply getting into the habit of calling the round petiol of the fruit the 'stalk,' and the contracted channel of the leaf, 'leaf-stalk.' But this way of naming them would not enforce, nor fasten in your mind, the difference between the two, so well as if you have an entirely different name for the leaf-stalk. Which is the more desirable, because the limiting character of the leaf, botanically, is—(I only learned this from my botanical friend the other day, justin the very moment I wanted it,)—that it holds the bud of the new stem in its own hollow, but cannot itself grow in the hollow of anything else;—or, in botanical language, leaves are never axillary,—don't grow in armpits, but are themselves armpits; hollows, that is to say, where they spring from the main stem.

10. Now there is already a received and useful botanical word, 'cyme' (which we shall want in a little while.) derived from the Greekκῦμα, a swelling or rising wave, and used to express a swelling cluster of foamy blossom. Connected with that word, but in a sort the reverse of it, you have the Greek 'κύμβη,' thehollowof a cup, or bowl; whenceκύμβαλου, a cymbal,—that is to say, a musical instrument owing its tone to itshollowness. These words become in Latin, cymba, and cymbalum; and I think you will find it entirely convenient and advantageous to call the leaf-stalk distinctively the 'cymba,' retaining the mingled idea of cup and boat, with respect at least to the part of it that holds the bud; and understanding that it gathers itself into a V-shaped, or even narrowly vertical, section, as a boat narrows to its bow, for strength to sustain the leaf.

With this word you may learn the Virgilian line, that shows the final use of iron—or iron-darkened—ships:

"Et ferrugíneâ subvectat corpora cymbâ."

The "subvectat corpora" will serve to remind you of the office of the leafy cymba in carrying the bud; and makeyou thankful that the said leafy vase is not of iron; and is a ship of Life instead of Death.

11. Already, not once, nor twice, I have had to use the word 'stem,' of the main round branch from which both stalk and cymba spring. This word you had better keep for all growing, or advancing, shoots of trees, whether from the ground, or from central trunks and branches. I regret that the words multiply on us; but each that I permit myself to use has its own proper thought or idea to express, as you will presently perceive; so that true knowledge multiplies with true words.

12. The 'stem,' you are to say, then, when you mean theadvancingshoot,—which lengthens annually, while a stalk ends every year in a blossom, and a cymba in a leaf. A stem is essentially round,[37]square, or regularly polygonal; though, as a cymba may become exceptionally round, a stem may become exceptionally flat, or even mimic the shape of a leaf. Indeed I should have liked to write "a stem is essentially round, and constructively, on occasion, square,"—but it would have been too grand. The fact is, however, that a stem is really a roundly minded thing, throwing off its branches in circles as a trundled mop throws off drops, though it can always order the branches to fly off in what order it likes,—two at a time, opposite to each other; or three, or five, in a spiral coil; or one here and one there, on this side and that;but it is always twisting, in its own inner mind and force; hence it is especially proper to use the word 'stem' of it—στέμμα, a twined wreath; properly, twined round a staff, or sceptre: therefore, learn at once by heart these lines in the opening Iliad:

"Στέμματ' ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος,Χρυςέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ·"

"Στέμματ' ἔχων ἐν χερσὶν ἑκηβόλου Ἀπόλλωνος,

Χρυςέῳ ἀνὰ σκήπτρῳ·"

And recollect that a sceptre is properly a staff to lean upon; and that as a crown or diadem is first a binding thing, a 'sceptre' is first asupportingthing, and it is in its nobleness, itself made of the stem of a young tree. You may just as well learn also this:

"Ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν οὔποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζουςΦύσει, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα τομὴν ἐν ὄρεσσι λέλοιπεν,Οὐδ' ἀναθηλήσει· περὶ γάρ ῥά ἑ χαλκὸς ἔλεψεΦύλλα τε καὶ φλοιόν· νῦν αὖτε μιν υἷες ἈχαιῶνἘν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵ τε θέμισταςΠρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται·"

"Ναὶ μὰ τόδε σκῆπτρον, τὸ μὲν οὔποτε φύλλα καὶ ὄζους

Φύσει, ἐπειδὴ πρῶτα τομὴν ἐν ὄρεσσι λέλοιπεν,

Οὐδ' ἀναθηλήσει· περὶ γάρ ῥά ἑ χαλκὸς ἔλεψε

Φύλλα τε καὶ φλοιόν· νῦν αὖτε μιν υἷες Ἀχαιῶν

Ἐν παλάμῃς φορέουσι δικασπόλοι, οἵ τε θέμιστας

Πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται·"

"Now, by this sacred sceptre hear me swearWhich never more shall leaves or blossoms bear,Which, severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,)On the bare mountains left its parent tree;This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to proveAn ensign of the delegates of Jove,From whom the power of laws and justice springs(Tremendous oath, inviolate to Kings)."

"Now, by this sacred sceptre hear me swear

Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear,

Which, severed from the trunk, (as I from thee,)

On the bare mountains left its parent tree;

This sceptre, formed by tempered steel to prove

An ensign of the delegates of Jove,

From whom the power of laws and justice springs

(Tremendous oath, inviolate to Kings)."

13. The supporting power in the tree itself is, I doubt not, greatly increased by this spiral action; and the fineinstinct of its being so, caused the twisted pillar to be used in the Lombardic Gothic,—at first, merely as a pleasant variety of form, but at last constructively and universally, by Giotto, and all the architects of his school. Not that the spiral form actually adds to the strength of a Lombardic pillar, by imitating contortions of wood, any more than the fluting of a Doric shaft adds to its strength by imitating the canaliculation of a reed; but the perfect action of the imagination, which had adopted the encircling acanthus for the capital, adopted the twining stemma for the shaft; the pure delight of the eye being the first condition in either case: and it is inconceivable how much of the pleasure taken both in ornament and in natural form is founded elementarily on groups of spiral line. The study in our fifth plate, of the involucre of the waste-thistle,[38]is as good an example as I can give of the more subtle and concealed conditions of this structure.

14. Returning to our present business of nomenclature, we find the Greek word, 'stemma,' adopted by the Latins,becoming the expression of a growing and hereditary race; and the branched tree, the natural type, among all nations, of multiplied families. Hence the entire fitness of the word for our present purposes; as signifying, "a spiral shoot extending itself by branches." But since, unless it is spiral, it is not a stem, and unless it has branches, it is not a stem, we shall still want another word for the sustaining 'sceptre' of a foxglove, or cowslip. Before determining that, however, we must see what need there may be of one familiar to our ears until lately, although now, I understand, falling into disuse.

15. By our definition, a stem is a spirally bent, essentially living and growing, shoot of vegetation. But the branch of a tree, in which many such stems have their origin, is not, except in a very subtle and partial way, spiral; nor, except in the shoots that spring from it, progressive forwards; it only receives increase of thickness at its sides. Much more, what used to be called thetrunkof a tree, in which many branches are united, has ceased to be, except in mere tendency and temper, spiral; and has so far ceased from growing as to be often in a state of decay in its interior, while the external layers are still in serviceable strength.

16. If, however, a trunk were only to be defined as an arrested stem, or a cluster of arrested stems, we might perhaps refuse, in scientific use, the popular word. But such a definition does not touch the main idea. Branches usually begin to assert themselves at a height above theground approximately fixed for each species of tree,—low in an oak, high in a stone pine; but, in both, marked as a point ofstructural change in the direction of growing force, like the spring of a vault from a pillar; and as the tree grows old, some of its branches getting torn away by winds or falling under the weight of their own fruit, or load of snow, or by natural decay, there remains literally a 'truncated' mass of timber, still bearing irregular branches here and there, but inevitably suggestive of resemblance to a human body, after the loss of some of its limbs.

And to prepare trees for their practical service, what age and storm only do partially, the first rough process of human art does completely. The branches are lopped away, leaving literally the 'truncus' as the part of the tree out of which log and rafter can be cut. And in many trees, it would appear to be the chief end of their being to produce this part of their body on a grand scale, and of noble substance; so that, while in thinking of vegetable life without reference to its use to men or animals, we should rightly say that the essence of it was in leaf and flower—not in trunk or fruit; yet for the sake of animals, we find that some plants, like the vine, are apparently meant chiefly to produce fruit; others, like laurels, chiefly to produce leaves; others chiefly to produce flowers; and others to produce permanently serviceable and sculptural wood; or, in some cases, merely picturesque and monumental masses of vegetable rock, "intertwistedfibres serpentine,"—of far nobler and more pathetic use in their places, and their enduring age, than ever they could be for material purpose in human habitation. For this central mass of the vegetable organism, then, the English word 'trunk' and French 'tronc' are always in accurate scholarship to be retained—meaning the part of a tree which remains when its branches are lopped away.

17. We have now got distinct ideas of four different kinds of stem, and simple names for them in Latin and English,—Petiolus, Cymba, Stemma, and Truncus; Stalk, Leaf-stalk, Stem, and Trunk; and these are all that we shall commonly need. There is, however, one more that will be sometimes necessary, though it is ugly and difficult to pronounce, and must be as little used as we can.

And here I must ask you to learn with me a little piece of Roman history. I say, tolearnwith me, because I don't know any Roman history except the two first books of Livy, and little bits here and there of the following six or seven. I only just know enough about it to be able to make out the bearings and meaning of any fact that I now learn. The greater number of modern historians know, (if honest enough even for that,) the facts, or something that may possibly be like the facts, but haven't the least notion of the meaning of them. So that, though I have to find out everything that I want in Smith's dictionary, like any schoolboy, I can usually tell you thesignificance of what I so find, better than perhaps even Mr. Smith himself could.

18. In the 586th page of Mr. Smith's volume, you have it written that 'Calvus,' bald-head, was the name of a family of the Licinia gens; that the man of whom we hear earliest, as so named, was the first plebeian elected to military tribuneship inB.C. 400; and that the fourth of whom we hear, was surnamed 'Stolo,' because he was so particular in pruning away the Stolons (stolones), or useless young shoots, of his vines.

We must keep this word 'stolon,' therefore, for these young suckers springing from an old root. Its derivation is uncertain; but the main idea meant by it is one of uselessness,—sprouting without occasion or fruit; and the words 'stolidus' and 'stolid' are really its derivatives, though we have lost their sense in English by partly confusing them with 'solid' which they have nothing to do with. A 'stolid' person is essentially a 'useless sucker' of society; frequently very leafy and graceful, but with no good in him.

Fig. 15.Fig. 15.

19. Nevertheless, I won't allow our vegetable 'stolons' to be despised. Some of quite the most beautiful forms of leafage belong to them;—even the foliage of the olive itself is never seen to the same perfection on the upper branches as in the young ground-rods in which the dual groups of leaves crowd themselves in their haste into clusters of three.

But, for our point of Latin history, remember alwaysthat in 400B.C., just a year before the death of Socrates at Athens, this family of Stolid persons manifested themselves at Rome, shooting up from plebeian roots into places where they had no business; and preparing the way for the degradation of the entire Roman race under the Empire; their success being owed, remember also, to the faults of the patricians, for one of the laws passed by Calvus Stolo was that the Sibylline books should be in custody of ten men, of whom five should be plebeian, "that no falsifications might be introduced in favour of the patricians."

20. All this time, however, we have got no name for the prettiest of all stems,—that of annual flowers growing high from among their ground leaves, like lilies of the valley, and saxifrages, and the tall primulas—of which this pretty type, Fig. 15, was cut for me by Mr. Burgess years ago; admirable in its light outline of the foamy globe of flowers, supported and balanced in the meadow breezes on that elastic rod of slenderest life.

What shall we call it? We had better rest from our study of terms a little, and do a piece of needful classifying, before we try to name it.

21. My younger readers will find it easy to learn, and convenient to remember, for a beginning of their science,the names of twelve great families of cinquefoiled flowers,[39]of which the first group of three, is for the most part golden, the second, blue, the third, purple, and the fourth, red.

And their names, by simple lips, can be pleasantly said, or sung, in this order, the two first only being a little difficult to get over.

Roof-foil,

Lucy,

Pea,

Pink,

Rock-foil,

Blue-bell,

Pansy,

Peach,

Primrose.

Bindweed.

Daisy.

Rose.

Which even in their Latin magniloquence will not be too terrible, namely,—

Stella,

Lucia,

Alata,

Clarissa,

Francesca,

Campanula,

Viola,

Persica,

Primula.

Convoluta.

Margarita.

Rosa.

22. I do not care much to assert or debate my reasons for the changes of nomenclature made in this list. Themost gratuitous is that of 'Lucy' for 'Gentian,' because the King of Macedon, from whom the flower has been so long named, was by no means a person deserving of so consecrated memory. I conceive no excuse needed for rejecting Caryophyll, one of the crudest and absurdest words ever coined by unscholarly men of science; or Papilionaceæ, which is unendurably long for pease; and when we are now writing Latin, in a sentimental temper, and wish to say that we gathered a daisy, we shall not any more be compelled to write that we gathered a 'Bellidem perennem,' or, an 'Oculum Diei.'

I take the pure Latin form, Margarita, instead of Margareta, in memory of Margherita of Cortona,[40]as well as of the great saint: also the tiny scatterings and sparklings of the daisy on the turf may remind us of the old use of the word 'Margaritæ,' for the minute particles of the Host sprinkled on the patina—"Has particulasμερίδαςvocat Euchologium,μαργαρίταςLiturgia Chrysostomi."[41]My young German readers will, I hope, call the flower Gretschen,—unless they would uproot the daisies of the Rhine, lest French girls should also count their love-lots by the Marguerite. I must be so ungracious to my fair young readers, however, as towarnthem that this trial of their lovers is a very favourable one, for, in nine blossoms out often, the leaves of the Marguerite are odd, so that, if they are only gracious enough to begin with the supposition that he loves them, they must needs end in the conviction of it.

23. I am concerned, however, for the present, only with my first or golden order, of which the Roof-foil, or house-leek, is called in present botany, Sedum, 'the squatter,' because of its way of fastening itself down on stones, or roof, as close as it can sit. But I think this an ungraceful notion of its behaviour; and as its blossoms are, of all flowers, the most sharply and distinctly star-shaped, I shall call it 'Stella' (providing otherwise, in due time, for the poor little chickweeds;) and the common stonecrop will therefore be 'Stella domestica.'

The second tribe, (at present saxifraga,) growing for the most part wild on rocks, may, I trust, even in Protestant botany, be named Francesca, after St. Francis of Assisi; not only for its modesty, and love of mountain ground, and poverty of colour and leaf; but also because the chief element of its decoration, seen close, will be found in its spots, or stigmata.

In the nomenclature of the third order I make no change.

24. Now all this group of golden-blossoming plants agree in general character of having a rich cluster of radical leaves, from which they throw up a single stalk bearing clustered blossoms; for which stalk, when entirely leafless, I intend always to keep the term 'virgula,' the'little rod'—not painfully caring about it, but being able thus to define it with precision, if required. And these are connected with the stems of branching shrubs through infinite varieties of structure, in which the first steps of transition are made by carrying the cluster of radical leaves up, and letting them expire gradually from the rising stem: the changes of form in the leaves as they rise higher from the ground being one of quite the most interesting specific studies in every plant. I had set myself once, in a bye-study for foreground drawing, hard on this point; and began, with Mr. Burgess, a complete analysis of the foliation of annual stems; of which Line-studies II., III., and IV., are examples; reduced copies, all, from the beautiful Flora Danica. But after giving two whole lovely long summer days, under the Giesbach, to the blue scabious, ('Devil's bit,') and getting in that time, only half-way up it, I gave in; and must leave the work to happier and younger souls.

25. For these flowering stems, therefore, possessing nearly all the complex organization of a tree, but not its permanence, we will keep the word 'virga;' and 'virgula' for those that have no leaves. I believe, when we come to the study of leaf-order, it will be best to begin with these annual virgæ, in which the leaf has nothing to do with preparation for a next year's branch. And now the remaining terms commonly applied to stems may be for the most part dispensed with; but several are interesting, and must be examined before dismissal.

26. Indeed, in the first place, the word we have to use so often, 'stalk,' has not been got to the roots of, yet. It comes from the Greekστέλεχος,(stelechos,) the 'holding part' of a tree, that which is like a handle to all its branches; 'stock' is another form in which it has come down to us: with some notion of its being the mother of branches: thus, when Athena's olive was burnt by the Persians, two days after, a shoot a cubit long had sprung from the 'stelechos,' of it.

27. Secondly. Few words are more interesting to the modern scholarly and professorial mind than 'stipend.' (I have twice a year at present to consider whether I am worth mine, sent with compliments from the Curators of the University chest). Now, this word comes from 'stips,' small pay, which itself comes from 'stipo,' to press together, with the idea of small coin heaped up in little towers or piles. But with the idea of lateral pressing together, instead of downward, we get 'stipes,' a solid log; in Greek, with the same sense,στύπος,(stupos,) whence, gradually, with help from another word meaning to beat, (and a side-glance at beating of hemp,) we get our 'stupid,' the German stumph, the Scottish sumph, and the plain English 'stump.'

Refining on the more delicate sound of stipes, the Latins got 'stipula,' the thin stem of straw: which rustles and ripples daintily in verse, associated with spica and spiculum, used of the sharp pointed ear of corn, and its fine processes of fairy shafts.

28. There are yet two more names of stalk to be studied, though, except for particular plants, not needing to be used,—namely, the Latin cau-dex, and cau-lis, both connected with the Greekκαυλός, properly meaning a solid stalk like a handle, passing into the sense of the hilt of a sword, or quill of a pen. Then, in Latin, caudex passes into the sense of log, and so, of cut plank or tablet of wood; thus finally becoming the classical 'codex' of writings engraved on such wooden tablets, and therefore generally used for authoritative manuscripts.

Lastly, 'caulis,' retained accurately in our cauliflower, contracted in 'colewort,' and refined in 'kail,' softens itself into the French 'chou,' meaning properly the whole family of thick-stalked eatable salads with spreading heads; but these being distinguished explicitly by Pliny as 'Capitati,' 'salads with a head,' or 'Captain salads,' the mediæval French softened the 'caulis capitatus' into 'chou cabus;'—or, to separate the round or apple-like mass of leaves from the flowery foam, 'cabus' simply, by us at last enriched and emphasized into 'cabbage.'

29. I believe we have now got through the stiffest piece of etymology we shall have to master in the course of our botany; but I am certain that young readers will find patient work, in this kind, well rewarded by the groups of connected thoughts which will thus attach themselves to familiar names; and their grasp of every language they learn must only be esteemed by them secure when they recognize its derivatives in these homely associations,and are as much at ease with the Latin or French syllables of a word as with the English ones; this familiarity being above all things needful to cure our young students of their present ludicrous impression that what is simple, in English, is knowing, in Greek; and that terms constructed out of a dead language will explain difficulties which remained insoluble in a living one. But Greek isnotyet dead: while if we carry our unscholarly nomenclature much further, English soon will be; and then doubtless botanical gentlemen at Athens will for some time think it fine to describe what we used to call caryophyllaceæ, as theἑδληφιδες.

30. For indeed we are all of us yet but school-boys, clumsily using alike our lips and brains; and with all our mastery of instruments and patience of attention, but few have reached, and those dimly, the first level of science,—wonder.

For the first instinct of the stem,—unnamed by us yet—unthought of,—the instinct of seeking light, as of the root to seek darkness,—what words can enough speak the wonder of it.

Look. Here is the little thing, Line-study V. (A), in its first birth to us: the stem of stems; the one of which we pray that it may bear our daily bread. The seed has fallen in the ground with the springing germ of it downwards; with heavenly cunning the taught stem curls round, and seeks the never-seen light. Veritable 'conversion,' miraculous, called of God. And here is the oatgerm, (B)—after the wheat, most vital of divine gifts; and assuredly, in days to come, fated to grow on many a naked rock in hitherto lifeless lands, over which the glancing sheaves of it will shake sweet treasure of innocent gold.

And who shall tell us how they grow; and the fashion of their rustling pillars—bent, and again erect, at every breeze. Fluted shaft or clustered pier, how poor of art, beside this grass-shaft—built, first to sustain the food of men, then to be strewn under their feet!

We must not stay to think of it, yet, or we shall get no farther till harvest has come and gone again. And having our names of stems now determined enough, we must in next chapter try a little to understand the different kinds of them.

The following notes, among many kindly sent me on the subject of Scottish Heraldry, seem to be the most trustworthy:—

"The earliest known mention of the thistle as the national badge of Scotland is in the inventory of the effects of James III., who probably adopted it as an appropriate illustration of the royal motto,In defence."Thistles occur on the coins of James IV., Mary, James V., and James VI.; and on those of James VI. they are for the first time accompanied by the motto,Nemo me impune lacesset."A collar of thistles appears on the gold bonnet-pieces of James V. of 1539; and the royal ensigns, as depicted in Sir David Lindsay's armorial register of 1542, are surrounded by a collar formed entirely of golden thistles, with an oval badge attached."This collar, however, was a mere device until the institution, or as it is generally but inaccurately called, the revival, of the order of the Thistle by James VII. (II. of England), which took place on May 29, 1687."Date of James III.'s reign 1460-1488.

"Thistles occur on the coins of James IV., Mary, James V., and James VI.; and on those of James VI. they are for the first time accompanied by the motto,Nemo me impune lacesset.

"A collar of thistles appears on the gold bonnet-pieces of James V. of 1539; and the royal ensigns, as depicted in Sir David Lindsay's armorial register of 1542, are surrounded by a collar formed entirely of golden thistles, with an oval badge attached.

"This collar, however, was a mere device until the institution, or as it is generally but inaccurately called, the revival, of the order of the Thistle by James VII. (II. of England), which took place on May 29, 1687."

Date of James III.'s reign 1460-1488.

OUTSIDE AND IN.

1. The elementary study of methods of growth, given in the following chapter, has been many years written, (the greater part soon after the fourth volume of 'Modern Painters'); and ought now to be rewritten entirely; but having no time to do this, I leave it with only a word or two of modification, because some truth and clearness of incipient notion will be conveyed by it to young readers, from which I can afterwards lop the errors, and into which I can graft the finer facts, better than if I had a less blunt embryo to begin with.

Fig. 17. Three leaves forming a stem.Fig. 17.

Fig. 16. Three separate leaves.Fig. 16.

2. A stem, then, broadly speaking, (I had thus began the old chapter,) is the channel of communication between the leaf and root; and if the leaf can grow directly from the root there is no stem: so that it is well first to conceive of all plants as consisting of leaves and roots only, with the condition that each leaf must have its own quite particular root[42]somewhere.Let a b c, Fig. 16, be three leaves, each, as you see, with its own root, and by no means dependent on other leaves for its daily bread; and let the horizontal line be the surface of the ground. Then the plant has no stem, or an underground one. But if the three leaves rise above the ground, as in Fig. 17, they must reach their roots by elongating their stalks, and this elongation is the stem of the plant. If the outside leaves grow last, and are therefore youngest, the plant is said to grow from the outside. You know that 'ex' means out, and that 'gen' is the first syllable of Genesis (or creation), therefore the old botanists, putting an o between the two syllables, called plants whose outside leaves grew last, Ex-o-gens. If the inside leaf grows last, and is youngest, the plant was said to grow from the inside, and from the Greek Endon, within, called an 'Endo-gen.' If these names are persisted in, the Greek botanists, to return the compliment, will of course call EndogensἸνσειδβορνιδες, and ExogensὍυτσειδβορνιδες. In the Oxford school, they will be called simply Inlaid and Outlaid.

Fig. 18. Ragged Robin.Fig. 18.

3. You see that if the outside leaves are to grow last, they may conveniently grow two at a time; which they accordingly do, and exogens always start with two littleleaves from their roots, and may therefore conveniently be called two-leaved; which, if you please, we will for our parts call them. The botanists call them 'two-suckered,' and can't be content to call themthatin English; but drag in a long Greek word, meaning the fleshy sucker of the sea-devil,—'cotyledon,' which, however, I find is practically getting shortened into 'cot,' and that they will have to end by calling endogens, monocots, and exogens, bicots. I mean steadily to call them one-leaved and two-leaved, for this further reason, that they differ not merely in the single or dual springing of first leaves from the seed; but in the distinctly single or dual arrangement of leaves afterwards on the stem; so that, through all the complexity obtained by alternate and spiral placing, every bicot or two-leaved flower or tree is in reality composed of dual groups of leaves, separated by a given length of stem; as, most characteristically in this pure mountain type of the Ragged Robin (Clarissa laciniosa), Fig. 18; and compare A, and B, Line-study II.; while, on the other hand, the monocot plants are by close analysis, I think, always resolvable into successively climbing leaves, sessile on one another, and sending their roots,or processes, for nourishment, down through one another, as in Fig. 19.

Fig. 19. Monocot plant.Fig. 19.

4. Not that I am yet clear, at all, myself; but I do think it's more the botanists' fault than mine, what 'cotyledonous' structure there may be at the outer base of each successive bud; and still less, how the intervenient length of stem, in the bicots, is related to their power, or law, of branching. For not only the two-leaved tree is outlaid, and the one-leaved inlaid, but the two-leaved tree is branched, and the one-leaved tree is not branched. This is a most vital and important distinction, which I state to you in very bold terms, for though there are some apparent exceptions to the law, there are, I believe, no real ones, if we define a branch rightly. Thus, the head of a palm tree is merely a cluster of large leaves; and the spike of a grass, a clustered blossom. The stem, in both, is unbranched; and we should be able in this respect to classify plants very simply indeed, but for a provoking species of intermediate creatures whose branching is always in the manner of corals, or sponges, or arborescent minerals, irregular and accidental, and essentially, therefore, distinguished from the systematic anatomy of a truly branched tree. Of these presently; we must go on by very short steps: and I find no step can be taken without check from existing generalizations. Sowerby's definition of Monocotyledons, in his ninth volume, begins thus: "Herbs, (or rarely, and only in exotic genera,) trees, in which the wood, pith, and bark are indistinguishable."Now if there be one plant more than another in which the pith is defined, it is the common Rush; while the nobler families of true herbs derive their principal character from being pithless altogether! We cannot advance too slowly.

5. In the families of one-leaved plants in which the young leaves grow directly out of the old ones, it becomes a grave question for them whether the old ones are to lie flat or edgeways, and whether they must therefore grow out of their faces or their edges. And we must at once understand the way they contrive it, in either case.

Fig. 20. Arethusan leaf.Fig. 20.

Among the many forms taken by the Arethusan leaf, one of the commonest is long and gradually tapering,—much broader at the base than the point. We will take such an one for examination, and suppose that it is growing on the ground as in Fig. 20, with a root to its every fibre. Cut out a piece of strong paper roughly into the shape of this Arethusan leaf, a, Fig. 21. Now suppose the next young leaf has to spring out of the front of this one, at about the middle of its height. Give it two nicks with the scissors at b b; then roll up the lower part into a cylinder, (it will overlap a good deal at the bottom,) and tie it fast with a fine thread: so, you will get the form at c. Then bend the top of it back, so that, seen sideways, it appears as at d, and you see you have made quite a little flower-pot to plant yournew leaf in, and perhaps it may occur to you that you have seen something like this before. Now make another, a little less wide, but with the part for the cylinder twice as long, roll it up in the same way, and slip it inside the other, with the flat part turned the other way, e. Surely this reminds you now of something you have seen? Or must I draw the something (Fig. 22)?

Fig. 21. Paper folding.Fig. 21.

6. All grasses are thus constructed, and have their leaves set thus, opposite, on the sides of their tubular stems, alternately, as they ascend. But in most of them there is also a peculiar construction, by which, at the base of the sheath, or enclosing tube, each leaf articulates itself with the rest of the stem at a ringed knot, or joint.

Fig. 22. A typical grass.Fig. 22.

Before examining these, remember there are mainly two sorts of joints in the framework of the bodies of animals. One is that in which the bone is thick at the joints and thin between them, (see the bone of the next chicken leg you eat), the other is that of animals that have shells or horny coats, in which characteristically the shell is thin at the joints, and thick between them (look at the next lobster's claw you can see, without eating). You know, also, that though the crustaceous are titled only from their crusts, the name 'insect' is given to the whole insect tribe, because they are farther jointed almost intosections: it is easily remembered, also, that the projecting joint means strength and elasticity in the creature, and that all its limbs are useful to it, and cannot conveniently be parted with; and that the incised, sectional, or insectile joint means more or less weakness,[43]and necklace-like laxity or license in the creature's make; and an ignoble power of shaking off its legs or arms on occasion, coupled also with modes of growth involving occasionally quite astonishing transformations, and beginnings of new life under new circumstances; so that, until very lately, no mortal knew what a crab was like in its youth, the very existenceof the creature, as well as its legs, being jointed, as it were and made in separate pieces with the narrowest possible thread of connection between them; and its principal, or stomachic, period of life, connected with its sentimental period by as thin a thread as a wasp's stomach is with its thorax.

7. Now in plants, as in animals, there are just the same opposed aspects of joint, with this specialty of difference in function, that the animal's limb bends at the joints, but the vegetable limb stiffens. And when the articulation projects, as in the joint of a cane, it means not only that the strength of the plant is well carried through the junction, but is carried farther and more safely than it could be without it: a cane is stronger, and can stand higher than it could otherwise, because of its joints. Also, this structure implies that the plant has a will of its own, and a position which on the whole it will keep, however it may now and then be bent out of it; and that it has a continual battle, of a healthy and humanlike kind, to wage with surrounding elements.

But the crabby, or insect-like, joint, which you get in seaweeds and cacti, means either that the plant is to be dragged and wagged here and there at the will of waves, and to have no spring nor mind of its own; or else that it has at least no springy intention and elasticity of purpose, but only a knobby, knotty, prickly, malignant stubbornness, and incoherent opiniativeness; crawling about, and coggling, and grovelling, and aggregatinganyhow, like the minds of so many people whom one knows!

8. Returning then to our grasses, in which the real rooting and junction of the leaves with each other is at these joints; we find that therefore every leaf of grass may be thought of as consisting of two main parts, for which we shall want two separate names. The lowest part, which wraps itself round to become strong, we will call the 'staff,' and for the free-floating outer part we will take specially the name given at present carelessly to a large number of the plants themselves, 'flag.' This will give a more clear meaning to the words 'rod' (virga), and 'staff' (baculus), when they occur together, as in the 23rd Psalm; and remember the distinction is that a rod bends like a switch, but a staff is stiff. I keep the well-known name 'blade' for grass-leaves in their fresh green state.

9. You felt, as you were bending down the paper into the form d, Fig. 21, the difficulty and awkwardness of the transition from the tubular form of the staff to the flat one of the flag. The mode in which this change is effected is one of the most interesting features in plants, for you will find presently that the leaf-stalk in ordinary leaves is only a means of accomplishing the same change from round to flat. But you know I said just now that some leaves were not flat, but set upright, edgeways. It is not a common position in two-leaved trees; but if you can run out and look at an arbor vitæ, it may interest youto see its hatchet-shaped vertically crested cluster of leaves transforming themselves gradually downwards into branches; and in one-leaved trees the vertically edged group is of great importance.

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