THE FALLING LEAF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE FALLING LEAF.

In the leaf-shedding tree we see the 'eaf, its duty done, begin to prepare for a sacrifice. The winter is a period of storm and stress, and aleo it may bo of intolerable burdens of snow, or even of ice, and to retain its panoply of leaves would, to many trees, lead to terrible damage by breakage, even if not to the utter destruction by overthrow. Bare and leafless branches minimise this risk to tho utmost, and therefore the last office of the dying leaf is to sever its connection spontaneously by disjunction of its connecting fells at a "point ™ ar tllc ll,1(I, If wo pick up a shed leaf at this period of fall we may see clearly that the stalk terminates in a clean surface, and not n rugged ar broken one, such as would be shown earlier in the season if it were broken off. The marvel of

marvels in the living- leaf has yet to be indicated, and that is the chlorophyll, the green colouring matter, winch pervades its tissues in the form of tiny grain.>. It is those grains alone, of all things in ihe world, which are gifted with the power of absorbing the vital energy of the sunbeam and responding to its stimulus in such a way as to seize upon the inorganic materials, the earthy salts, and aerial gas, and work them up into those forms of vegetable nutrition upon which all animal life depends, including, of course, our own. while at the same time building up t'.it- great bulk of other materials which form the basis of all progress, commercial or otherwise, in one way or another. Without chlorophyll, the sun would shine-upon a barren desert: but with it enshrined in the wondrous fabric of the leaf, no words can even faintly picture the beauty and multiformity of its direct and indirect creations and the marvels they embrace.