branchlet

She was gazing over the wall across the paddock where Maggie's mare was peaceably and audibly feeding, and so at the Blore Ash on its mimic hill, every bough and drooping branchlet dark against the sunset sky; and this radiant in her eyes with a beauty its deepest glow had never held for her before.

The trees, ashes and elms, that bordered a field adjoining the kail-yard, stood strangely out against this glow; every branchlet and twig seemed traced in ink—the blackest of the black.

The first group, Ectocarpeæ, is composed of thread-like jointed plants, the fructification of which consists of external spores, sometimes formed by the swelling of a branchlet.

As cultivated it is an annual with an erect stalk rising to a height of from 20 to 40 in., with alternate, sessile, narrowly lance-shaped leaves, branching only at the top, each branch or branchlet ending in a bright blue flower.

The leaves are little evergreen scales, which overlap, and being closely pressed to the branchlet, completely clothe and hide it.