415

The insertion of the leaves.

OF THE INSERTION OF THE LEAVES ON THE BRANCHES.

The thickness of a branch never diminishes within the space between one leaf and the next excepting by so much as the thickness of the bud which is above the leaf and this thickness is taken off from the branch above [the node] as far as the next leaf.

Nature has so placed the leaves of the latest shoots of many plants that the sixth leaf is always above the first, and so on in succession, if the rule is not [accidentally] interfered with; and this occurs for two useful ends in the plant: First that as the shoot and the fruit of the following year spring from the bud or eye which lies above and in close contact with the insertion of the leaf [in the axil], the water which falls upon the shoot can run down to nourish the bud, by the drop being caught in the hollow [axil] at the insertion of the leaf. And the second advantage is, that as these shoots develop in the following year one will not cover the next below, since the 5 come forth on five different sides; and the sixth which is above the first is at some distance.

Taken from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci edited by Jean Paul Richter, 1880.

VII * X
Notebooks of Leonoardo da Vinci
VIII: Botany for Painters and Elements of Landscape Painting.
. . .
395
The law of proportion in the growth of the branches.
396,
397,
398,
399,
400,
401,
402
The direction of growth.
403,
404,
405,
406,
407
The forms of trees.
408,
409,
410,
411
The insertion of the leaves.
412,
413,
414,
415,
416,
417,
418,
419
Light on branches and leaves.
420,
421,
422
The proportions of light and shade in a leaf.
423,
424,
425,
426
Of the transparency of leaves.
427,
428,
429
The gradations of shade and colour in leaves.
430,
431,
432,
433,
434
A classification of trees according to their colours.
435
. . .