d
cannot conveniently be parted with; and that the incised, sectional, or
insectile joint means more or less weakness,[43] and necklace-like laxity
or license in the creature's make; and an ignoble power of shaking off its
legs or arms on occasion, coupled also with modes of growth involving
occasionally quite astonishing transformations, and beginnings of new life
under new circumstances; so that, until very lately, no mortal knew what a
crab was like in its youth, the very existence {160} of the creature, as
well as its legs, being jointed, as it were and made in separate pieces
with the narrowest possible thread of connection between them; and its
principal, or stomachic, period of life, connected with its sentimental
period by as thin a thread as a wasp's stomach is with its thorax.

7. Now in plants, as in animals, there are just the same opposed aspects of
joint, with this specialty of difference in function, that the animal's
limb bends at the joints, but the vegetable limb stiffens. And when the
articulation projects, as in the joint of a cane, it means not only that
the strength of the plant is well carried through the junction, but is
carried farther and more safely than it could be without it: a cane is
stronger, and can stand higher than it could otherwise, because of its
joints. Also, this structure implies that the plant has a will of its own,
and a position which on the whole it will keep, however it may now and then
be bent out of it; and that it has a continual battle, of a healthy and
humanlike kind, to wage with surrounding elements.

But the crabby, or insect-like, joint, which you get in seaweeds and cacti,
means either that the plant is to be dragged and wagged here and there at
the will of waves, and to have no spring nor mind of its own; or else that
it has at least no springy intention and elasticity of purpose, but only a
knobby, knotty, prickly, malignant stubbornness, and incoherent
opiniativeness; crawling about, and coggling, and grovelling, and
aggregating {161} anyhow, like the minds of so many people whom one knows!

8. Returning then to our grasses, in which the real rooting and junction of
the leaves with each other is at these joints; we find that therefore every
leaf of grass may be thought of as consisting of two main parts, for which
we shall want two separate names. The lowest part, which wraps itself round
to become strong, we will call the 'staff,' and for the free-floating oute