9. Now there would be no inconvenience in your simply getting into the habit of calling the round petiol of the fruit the 'stalk,' and the contracted channel of the leaf, 'leaf-stalk.' But this way of naming them would not enforce, nor fasten in your mind, the difference between the two, so well as if you have an entirely different name for the leaf-stalk. Which is the more desirable, because the limiting character of the leaf, botanically, is--(I only learned this from my botanical friend the other day, just {135} in the very moment I wanted it,)--that it holds the bud of the new stem in its own hollow, but cannot itself grow in the hollow of anything else;--or, in botanical language, leaves are never axillary,--don't grow in armpits, but are themselves armpits; hollows, that is to say, where they spring from the main stem. 10. Now there is already a received and useful botanical word, 'cyme' (which we shall want in a little while.) derived from the Greek [Greek: kuma], a swelling or rising wave, and used to express a swelling cluster of foamy blossom. Connected with that word, but in a sort the reverse of it, you have the Greek '[Greek: kumbe],' the _hollow_ of a cup, or bowl; whence [Greek: kumbalou], a cymbal,--that is to say, a musical instrument owing its tone to its _hollowness_. These words become in Latin, cymba, and cymbalum; and I think you will find it entirely convenient and advantageous to call the leaf-stalk distinctively the 'cymba,' retaining the mingled idea of cup and boat, with respect at least to the part of it that holds the bud; and understanding that it gathers itself into a V-shaped, or even narrowly vertical, section, as a boat narrows to its bow, for strength to sustain the leaf. With this word you may learn the Virgilian line, that shows the final use of iron--or iron-darkened--ships: "Et ferruginea subvectat corpora cymba." The "subvectat corpora" will serve to remind you of the office of the leafy cymba in carrying the bud; and make {136} you thankful that the said leafy vase is not of iron; and is a ship of Life instead of Death. 11. Already, not once, nor twice, I have had to use the word 'stem,' of the main round branch from which both stalk and cymba spring. This word you had better keep for all growing, or advancing, shoots of trees, whether from the ground, or from central trunks and branches. I regret that the words multiply on us; but each that I permit myself to use has its own proper thought or idea to express, as you will presently perceive; so that true knowledge multiplies with true words.