The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci

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Page 416 of 1565.
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OF THE RAMIFICATIONS OF TREES AND THEIR FOLIAGE.

The ramifications of any tree, such as the elm, are wide and slender
after the manner of a hand with spread fingers, foreshortened. And
these are seen in the distribution [thus]: the lower portions are
seen from above; and those that are above are seen from below; and
those in the middle, some from below and some from above. The upper
part is the extreme [top] of this ramification and the middle
portion is more foreshortened than any other of those which are
turned with their tips towards you. And of those parts of the middle
of the height of the tree, the longest will be towards the top of
the tree and will produce a ramification like the foliage of the
common willow, which grows on the banks of rivers.

Other ramifications are spherical, as those of such trees as put
forth their shoots and leaves in the order of the sixth being placed
above the first. Others are thin and light like the willow and
others.

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