395

The relative thickness of the branches to the trunk.

Every year when the boughs of a plant [or tree] have made an end of maturing their growth, they will have made, when put together, a thickness equal to that of the main stem; and at every stage of its ramification you will find the thickness of the said main stem; as: i k, g h, e f, c d, a b, will always be equal to each other; unless the tree is pollard—if so the rule does not hold good.

All the branches have a direction which tends to the centre of the tree m.

[Footnote: The two sketches of leafless trees one above another on the left hand side of Pl. XXVII, No. 1, belong to this passage.]

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.
Classification of trees.
393
The relative thickness of the branches to the trunk.
394,
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
. . .