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The leaf-stalk, or petiole, is a foot thick where it sprouts from the trunk; and before it reaches the leaflets it is a solid beam of ten or twelve feet long, while the circular fan or leaf itself is nine or ten in diameter! A single leaf of the murichi palm is a full load for a man.
Exocarpus latifolius is so different from E. cupressiformis, in its foliage and aspect, that I did not suspect their near relation, until I found blossom and fruit: the ripe kernel as well as its yellow succulent leaf-stalk have a very agreeable taste; a leguminous shrub, about five or six feet high, with purple blossoms gathered into terminal oblong heads; this would be an ornament to our gardens.
One could get an excellent piece, without further labour, by merely cutting the leaf-stalk of the box, as Megachile sericans does with her paliurus. The lilac-lover disdains them absolutely. For what reason? I fancy that she finds them too stiff. Would she think differently if the lilac-bush were not there? Perhaps so.
The trunk is rough and furrowed, and the leaves have from six to ten pairs of leaflets and an odd one. They are smooth, strongly serrated and rather pointed; the color is a light, bright green. The catkins are green, from four to seven inches long, and hang from the axils of the last year's leaves. The leaves are much longer than those of the locust, and the leaf-stalk is downy.
Indeed, the comparison, like the leaf-stalk, holds better than would be supposed; for the grasping of the latter is not the result of a blind groping in all directions by a continuous movement, but of a definite sensitiveness which acts only upon the occasion.
The leaf-stalk is clipped with the scissors and, without more ado, the Megachile retires the richer by a first-rate bit of material. Split up into their component parts, two cells give me altogether eighty-three pieces of leaves, whereof eighteen are smaller than the others and of a round shape. The last-named come from the lids.
Remove the scales by cutting carefully through a single pair, opposite the leaf-stalk, and peeling them off. The scales are modified stipules, instead of leaf-stalks, as in Horsechestnut. The outer pair are brown and thick, the inner green, and becoming more delicate and crumpled as we proceed toward the centre of the bud. The leaves begin with the second or third pair of scales.
The cause of these movements is believed to lie in changes of tension preceding growth in the tissues of the stem. Every stem is in a state of constant tension. Naudin has thus expressed it, "the interior of every stem is too large for its Jacket." If a leaf-stalk of Nasturtium be slit vertically for an inch or two, the two halves will spring back abruptly.
Thickly-prickled stems of green-brier, the wild smilax, rise to the height of the choke-cherry shrubs and the branches lift themselves by means of two tendrils on each leaf-stalk to the most favorable positions for the sunlight. Under these broad leaves the catbird is concealed. Elegant epicurean, he is sampling the ripening choke-cherries.
The leaf-stalk, or petiole, is a foot thick where it sprouts from the trunk; and before it reaches the leaflets it is a solid beam of ten or twelve feet long, while the circular fan or leaf itself is nine or ten in diameter! A single leaf of the murichi palm is a full load for a man.
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