It is true that, in many families of plants, leaves, by their shape alone, announce at once the kind of plant to which they belong; at the same time there is a large number of plants that cannot be known by their leaves, but only by their flowers and fruits. It is by flowers and fruits that plants are classified; and the more nearly alike these are in two plants, the more closely are those plants related. The flower and the fruit proclaim the nature of the plant. “A tree is known by its fruit.”
LXXXIII.—THE BROOK.
Tennyson.
I come from haunts of coots and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,