ench for what we are to call the stem
(Sec. 12, p. 136).

"The tige," then, begins M. Louis, "is the axis of the ascending system of
a vegetable, and it is garnished at intervals with vital knots, (eyes,)
from which spring leaves and buds, disposed in a perfectly regular order.
The root presents nothing of the kind. This character permits us always to
distinguish, in the vegetable axis, what belongs really to the stem, and
what to the root."

4. Yes; and that is partly a new idea to me, for in this power of
_assigning their order_ for the leaves, the stem seems to take a royal or
commandant character, and cannot be merely defined as the connexion of the
leaf with the roots.

In _it_ is put the spirit of determination. One cannot fancy the little
leaf, as it is born, determining the point it will be born at: the
governing stem must determine that for it. Also the disorderliness of the
root is to be noted for a condition of its degradation, no less than its
love, and need, of Darkness.

Nor was I quite right (above, Sec. 15, p. 139) in calling the stem _itself_
'spiral': it is itself a straight-growing rod, but one which, as it grows,
lays the buds of future leaves round it in a spiral order, like the
bas-relief on Trajan's column.

I go on with Figuier: the next passage is very valuable.

5. "The tige is the part of plants which, directed into the air, supports,
and _gives growing power to_, the branches, the twigs, the leaves, and the
flowers. The form, strength, and direction of the tige depend on the part
that each plant has to play among the vast vegetable population of our
globe. Plants which need for their life a pure and often-renewed air, are
borne by a straight tige, robust and tall. When they have need only of a
moist air, more condensed, and more rarely renewed, when they have to creep
on the ground or glide in thickets, the tiges are long, flexible, and
dragging. If they are to float in the air, sustaining themselves on more
robust vegetables, they are provided with flexible, slender, and supple
tiges."

6. Yes; but in that last sentence he loses hold of his main idea, and to me
the important one,--namely, the connexion of the form of stem with the
quality of the air it requires. And that idea itself is at present vague,
though most valuable, to me. A strawberry creeps, with a flexible stem, but
requires certainly no less pure air than a wood-fungus, which stands up
straight. And in our own hedges and