You understand now that when the leaves of a plant shed rain water after the fashion of the Caladium, the chances are that its root-branches spread out as far as the drip of the water; and that the root of the rhubarb points almost straight downward, is told you by the drip of water from the rhubarb leaves.
LEAF VEINS
Some time ago you learned that from the stem of a plant you could guess the number of seed leaves which it brought into the world, and that in the same way from the seed leaves you could guess what kind of a stem it would build up.
From the way in which a leaf is veined you can guess both of these things. You can guess what sort of a stem belongs to the plant, and with how many seed leaves it began life.
When the little veins run in and out, forming a sort of network, we say that the leaf is “net-veined.”
Fig. 140
Fig. 141
