Plant growth: leaves to the sky and the gourd experiment
Branch-tips and leaves turning skyward, dew as nourishment, and 60 gourds grown from one root
A cluster of botanical observations on plant growth, illustrated by branch and leaf sketches down the right margin. Branch-tips turn skyward unless weighed down by fruit, and leaves hold their upper faces to the sky to catch the night dew, which together with the sun and the earth's moisture nourishes the plant. The writer records an experiment keeping a gourd alive on a single minimal root watered by hand, ripening about 60 long gourds, and concludes that the night dew fed the plant through the stalks of its great leaves. A further note gives the phyllotactic rule that on the year's last branch the sixth leaf above sits over the sixth below, the two brother branches turning in mirror image, and calls the leaf the 'teat' of next year's branch or fruit.
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Branch-tips turn toward the sky unless weighed by fruit
The tips of a plant's branchings turn upward toward the sky as far as they can. They bend away from this only when overcome by the weight of the fruit they carry.
Leaves face the sky for the night dew; a gourd kept on one root
Leaves hold their upper faces to the sky to receive the dew that falls by night, while sun and the earth's moisture also nourish the plant. To test this, the writer kept a gourd alive on a single tiny root watered by hand, and it ripened about 60 long gourds. He judged that the night dew, entering abundantly through the stalks of the great leaves, fed the plant and its 'children.'
Phyllotaxis: sixth leaf above over the sixth below, in mirrored turns
On the last branch of the year the leaves follow a rule of contrary motion on the two brother branches. Turning around the branch, the sixth leaf above is born over the sixth below. If one branch turns toward its companion to the right, the other turns to the left.
The leaf as the teat that feeds next year's growth
A marginal note calls the leaf the teat or nipple of the branch or fruit that will be born the following year. It feeds the bud from which next season's growth emerges.
Marginal branch and leaf sketches
The right margin carries several pen sketches: a small upright tree, a forked branch, and slender stems set with paired leaves. They diagram the leaf arrangement and upward-turning tips described in the notes.