stamens above,—the petals nothing, the stalks all tiny trees, always dividing their branches mainly into three—one in the centre short, and the two lateral, long, with an intermediate extremely long one, if needed, to fill a gap, so contriving that the flowers shall all be nearly at the same level, or at least surface of ball, like a guelder rose. But the cunning with which the tree conceals its structure till the blossom is fallen, and then—for a little while, we had best look no more at it, for it is all like grape-stalks with no grapes.
These, whether carrying hawthorn blossom and haw, or grape blossom and grape, or peach blossom and peach, you will simply call the 'stalk,' whether of flower or fruit. A 'stalk' is essentially round, like a pillar; and has, for the most part, the power of first developing, and then shaking off, flower and fruit from its extremities. You can pull the peach from its stalk, the cherry, the grape. Always at some time of its existence, the flower-stalk lets fall something of what it sustained, petal or seed.
In late Latin it is called 'petiolus,' the little foot; because the expanding piece that holds the grape, or olive, is a little like an animal's foot. Modern botanists have misapplied the word to the leaf-stalk, which has no resemblance to a foot at all. We must keep the word to its proper meaning, and, when we want to write Latin, call it 'petiolus;' when we want to write English, call it 'stalk,' meaning always fruit or flower stalk.
I cannot find when the word 'stalk' first appears in English:—its derivation will be given presently.
5. Gather next a hawthorn leaf. That also has a stalk; but you can't shake the leaf off it. It, and the leaf, are essentially one; for the sustaining fibre runs up into every ripple or jag of the leaf's edge: and its section is different from that of the flower-stalk; it is no more round, but has an upper and under surface, quite different from each other. It will be better, however, to take a larger leaf to examine this structure in. Cabbage, cauliflower, or rhubarb, would any of them be good, but don't grow wild in the luxuriance I want. So, if you please, we will take a leaf of burdock, (Arctium Lappa,) the principal business of that plant being clearly to grow leaves wherewith to adorn fore-grounds.[[35]]
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, and d. 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.
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 at a and b, and double those pieces sharply back, as at B; then, opening them again, cut the whole