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It is primarily in the first character that it attracts our attention, as a radiating and absorbing surface, exposed to the sun and the currents of the air; such that, if we imagine a plateau of meadow-land or bare earth raised to the mean level of the forest's exposed leaf-surface, we shall have an agent entirely similar in kind, although perhaps widely differing in the amount of action.
The galls at my hand simulated little acorns, dull greenish in color, matching the leaf-surface on which they rested, and rising in a sharp point. I cut one through and, when wearied and fretted with the responsibilities of independent existence, I know I shall often recall and envy my grub in his palatial parasitic home.
This disposition of the foliage interferes with that free communication between sun and sky above, and leaf-surface below, on which the amount of radiation and absorption of light depends. It must further be remembered that the form and texture of a given surface are important elements in determining its thermoscopic character.
Hence we must take into account not merely the area of leaf-surface actually exposed to the sky, but, to a greater or less extent, the surface of every leaf in the whole tree or the whole wood.
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