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, {156} or processes, for nourishment, down
through one another, as in Fig. 19.

[Illustration: 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." {157} 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