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The leaves of a Beech tree.

3D rendering of a µCT scan of a leaf piece, resolution circa 40 µm/voxel.

Lichen Dolichousnea longissima. The photosynthetic appendages on the strands are leaf-like in appearance and function but ontogenically are not leaves.

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants.^[1][2]

Typically a leaf is a thin, flattened organ borne above ground and specialized for photosynthesis, but many types of leaves are adapted in ways almost unrecognisable in those terms: some are not flat (for example many succulent leaves and conifers), some are not above ground (such as bulb scales), and some are without major photosynthetic function (consider for example cataphylls, spines, and cotyledons).

Conversely, many structures of non-vascular plants, or even of some lichens, which are not plants at all (in the sense of being members of the kingdom Plantae), do look and function much like leaves. Furthermore, several structures found in vascular plants look like leaves but are not actually leaves; they differ from leaves in their structures and origins. Examples include phyllodes, cladodes, and phylloclades.^[2]

General nature of leaves[link]

Typically leaves are flat and thin, thereby maximising the surface area directly exposed to light and promoting photosynthetic function. Externally they commonly are arranged on the plant in such ways as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications; for instance plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows and Eucalyptus.

Likewise, the internal organisation of most kinds of leaves has evolved to maximise exposure of the photosynthetic organelles, the chloroplasts, to light and to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. Most leaves have stomata, which open or narrow to regulate the exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapour with the atmosphere.

In contrast however, some leaf forms are adapted to modulate the amount of light they absorb to avoid or mitigate excessive heat, ultraviolet damage, or desiccation, or to sacrifice light-absorption efficiency in favour of protection from herbivorous enemies. Among these forms the leaves of many xerophytes are conspicuous. For such plants their major constraint is not light flux or intensity, but heat, cold, drought, wind, herbivory, and various other hazards.^[3] Typical examples among such strategies are so-called window plants such as Fenestraria species, some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata^[4] and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides.^[5]

The shape and structure of leaves vary considerably from species to species of plant, depending largely on their adaptation to climate and available light, but also to other factors such as grazing animals, available nutrients, and ecological competition from other plants. Considerable changes in leaf type occur within species too, for example as a plant matures; as a case in point Eucalyptus species commonly have isobilateral, pendent leaves when mature and dominating their neighbours; however, such trees tend to have erect or horizontal dorsiventral leaves as seedlings, when their growth is limited by the available light.^[6] Other factors include the need to balance water loss at high temperature and low humidity against the need to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. In most plants leaves also are the primary organs responsible for transpiration and guttation.

Leaves can also store food and water, and are modified accordingly to meet these functions, for example in the leaves of succulent plants and in bulb scales. The concentration of photosynthetic structures in leaves requires that they are richer in protein, minerals, and sugars, than say, woody stem tissues. Accordingly leaves are prominent in the diet of many animals. This is true for humans, for whom leaf vegetables commonly are food staples.

A leaf shed in autumn.

Correspondingly, leaves represent heavy investment on the part of the plants bearing them, and their retention or disposition are the subject of elaborate strategies for dealing with pest pressures, seasonal conditions, and protective measures such as the growth of thorns and the production of phytoliths, lignins, tannins and poisons.

Deciduous plants in frigid or cold temperate regions typically shed their leaves in autumn, whereas in areas with a severe dry season, some plants may shed their leaves until the dry season ends. In either case the shed leaves may be expected to contribute their retained nutrients to the soil where they fall.

In contrast, many other non-seasonal plants, such as palms and conifers, retain their leaves for long periods; Welwitschia retains its two main leaves throughout a lifetime that may exceed a thousand years.

Not all plants have true leaves. Bryophytes (e.g., mosses and liverworts) are non-vascular plants, and, although they produce flattened, leaf-like structures that are rich in chlorophyll, these organs differ morphologically from the leaves of vascular plants; For one thing, they lack vascular tissue. Vascularised leaves first evolved following the Devonian period, when carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere dropped significantly. This occurred independently in two separate lineages of vascular plants: the microphylls of lycophytes and the euphylls ("true leaves") of ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms. Euphylls are also referred to as macrophylls or megaphylls ("large leaves").

Large-scale features (leaf morphology)[link]

A structurally complete leaf of an angiosperm consists of a petiole (leaf stalk), a lamina (leaf blade), and stipules (small structures located to either side of the base of the petiole). Not every species produces leaves with all of these structural components. In certain species, paired stipules are not obvious or are absent altogether. A petiole may be absent, or the blade may not be laminar (flattened). The tremendous variety shown in leaf structure (anatomy) from species to species is presented in detail below under morphology.

The petiole mechanically links the leaf to the plant and provides the route for transfer of water and sugars to and from the leaf. The lamina is typically the location of the majority of photosynthesis.

Anatomy[link]

This section requires expansion.

Medium scale features[link]

Leaves are normally extensively vascularised and are typically covered by a dense network of xylem, which supply water for photosynthesis, and phloem, which remove the sugars produced by photosynthesis. Many leaves are covered in trichomes (small hairs) which have a diverse range of structures and functions.

Small-scale features[link]

A leaf is a plant organ and is made up of a collection of tissues in a regular organisation. The major tissue systems present are:

1. The epidermis that covers the upper and lower surfaces
2. The mesophyll inside the leaf that is rich in chloroplasts (also called chlorenchyma)
3. The arrangement of veins (the vascular tissue)

These three tissue systems typically form a regular organisation at the cellular scale.

Major leaf tissues[link]

Epidermis[link]

SEM image of Nicotiana alata leaf's epidermis, showing trichomes (hair-like appendages) and stomata (eye-shaped slits, visible at full resolution).

The epidermis is the outer layer of cells covering the leaf. It forms the boundary separating the plant's inner cells from the external world. The epidermis serves several functions: protection against water loss by way of transpiration, regulation of gas exchange, secretion of metabolic compounds, and (in some species) absorption of water. Most leaves show dorsoventral anatomy: The upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces have somewhat different construction and may serve different functions.

The epidermis is usually transparent (epidermal cells lack chloroplasts) and coated on the outer side with a waxy cuticle that prevents water loss. The cuticle is in some cases thinner on the lower epidermis than on the upper epidermis, and is generally thicker on leaves from dry climates as compared with those from wet climates.

The epidermis tissue includes several differentiated cell types: epidermal cells, epidermal hair cells (trichomes) cells in the stomate complex; guard cells and subsidiary cells. The epidermal cells are the most numerous, largest, and least specialized and form the majority of the epidermis. These are typically more elongated in the leaves of monocots than in those of dicots.

The epidermis is covered with pores called stomata, part of a stoma complex consisting of a pore surrounded on each side by chloroplast-containing guard cells, and two to four subsidiary cells that lack chloroplasts. Opening and closing of the stoma complex regulates the exchange of gases and water vapor between the outside air and the interior of the leaf and plays an important role in allowing photosynthesis without letting the leaf dry out. In a typical leaf, the stomata are more numerous over the abaxial (lower) epidermis than the adaxial (upper) epidermis and more numerous in plants from cooler climates.

Mesophyll[link]

Most of the interior of the leaf between the upper and lower layers of epidermis is a parenchyma (ground tissue) or chlorenchyma tissue called the mesophyll (Greek for "middle leaf"). This assimilation tissue is the primary location of photosynthesis in the plant. The products of photosynthesis are called "assimilates".

In ferns and most flowering plants, the mesophyll is divided into two layers:

• An upper palisade layer of tightly packed, vertically elongated cells, one to two cells thick, directly beneath the adaxial epidermis. Its cells contain many more chloroplasts than the spongy layer. These long cylindrical cells are regularly arranged in one to five rows. Cylindrical cells, with the chloroplasts close to the walls of the cell, can take optimal advantage of light. The slight separation of the cells provides maximum absorption of carbon dioxide. This separation must be minimal to afford capillary action for water distribution. In order to adapt to their different environment (such as sun or shade), plants had to adapt this structure to obtain optimal result. Sun leaves have a multi-layered palisade layer, while shade leaves or older leaves closer to the soil are single-layered.
• Beneath the palisade layer is the spongy layer. The cells of the spongy layer are more rounded and not so tightly packed. There are large intercellular air spaces. These cells contain fewer chloroplasts than those of the palisade layer. The pores or stomata of the epidermis open into substomatal chambers, which are connected to the air spaces between the spongy layer cells.

These two different layers of the mesophyll are absent in many aquatic and marsh plants. Even an epidermis and a mesophyll may be lacking. Instead for their gaseous exchanges they use a homogeneous aerenchyma (thin-walled cells separated by large gas-filled spaces). Their stomata are situated at the upper surface.

Leaves are normally green in color, which comes from chlorophyll found in plastids in the chlorenchyma cells. Plants that lack chlorophyll cannot photosynthesize.

Veins[link]

The veins of a bramble leaf.

The veins are the vascular tissue of the leaf and are located in the spongy layer of the mesophyll. They are typical examples of pattern formation through ramification. The pattern of the veins is called venation.

The veins are made up of:

• Xylem: tubes that bring water and minerals from the roots into the leaf.
• Phloem: tubes that usually move sap, with dissolved sucrose, produced by photosynthesis in the leaf, out of the leaf.

The xylem typically lies on the adaxial side of the vascular bundle and the phloem typically lies on the abaxial side. Both are embedded in a dense parenchyma tissue, called the pith or sheath, which usually includes some structural collenchyma tissue.

Seasonal leaf loss[link]

Leaves shifting color in fall

Leaves in temperate, boreal, and seasonally dry zones may be seasonally deciduous (falling off or dying for the inclement season). This mechanism to shed leaves is called abscission. After the leaf is shed, a leaf scar develops on the twig. In cold autumns, they sometimes change color, and turn yellow, bright-orange, or red, as various accessory pigments (carotenoids and xanthophylls) are revealed when the tree responds to cold and reduced sunlight by curtailing chlorophyll production. Red anthocyanin pigments are now thought to be produced in the leaf as it dies, possibly to mask the yellow hue left when the chlorophyll is lost - yellow leaves appear to attract herbivores such as aphids.^[7]

Morphology[link]

The Citrus leaf is identified by the pores and pigments, as well as the margins.

External leaf characteristics (such as shape, margin, hairs, etc.) are important for identifying plant species, and botanists have developed a rich terminology for describing leaf characteristics. These structures are a part of what makes leaves determinant; they grow and achieve a specific pattern and shape, then stop. Other plant parts like stems or roots are non-determinant, and will usually continue to grow as long as they have the resources to do so.

Classification of leaves can occur through many different designative schema, and the type of leaf is usually characteristic of a species, although some species produce more than one type of leaf. The longest type of leaf is a leaf from palm trees, measuring at nine feet long. The terminology associated with the description of leaf morphology is presented, in illustrated form, at Wikibooks.

Basic types[link]

Leaves of the White Spruce (Picea glauca) are needle-shaped and their arrangement is spiral

• Ferns have fronds
• Conifer leaves are typically needle-, awl-, or scale-shaped
• Angiosperm (flowering plant) leaves: the standard form includes stipules, a petiole, and a lamina
• Lycophytes have microphyll leaves.
• Sheath leaves (type found in most grasses)
• Other specialized leaves (such as those of Nepenthes)

Arrangement on the stem[link]

Different terms are usually used to describe leaf placement (phyllotaxis):

The leaves on this plant are arranged in pairs opposite one another, with successive pairs at right angles to each other ("decussate") along the red stem. Note the developing buds in the axils of these leaves.

• Alternate – leaf attachments are singular at nodes, and leaves alternate direction, to a greater or lesser degree, along the stem.
• Opposite – Two structures, one on each opposite side of the stem, typically leaves, branches, or flower parts. Leaf attachments are paired at each node; decussate if, as typical, each successive pair is rotated 90° progressing along the stem; or distichous if not rotated, but two-ranked (in the same geometric flat-plane).
• Whorled – three or more leaves attach at each point or node on the stem. As with opposite leaves, successive whorls may or may not be decussate, rotated by half the angle between the leaves in the whorl (i.e., successive whorls of three rotated 60°, whorls of four rotated 45°, etc.). Opposite leaves may appear whorled near the tip of the stem.
• Rosulate – leaves form a rosette

As a stem grows, leaves tend to appear arranged around the stem in a way that optimizes yield of light. In essence, leaves form a helix pattern centered around the stem, either clockwise or counterclockwise, with (depending upon the species) the same angle of divergence. There is a regularity in these angles and they follow the numbers in a Fibonacci sequence: 1/2, 2/3, 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, 21/34, 34/55, 55/89. This series tends to a limit close to 360° x 34/89 = 137.52 or 137° 30', an angle known in mathematics as the golden angle. In the series, the numerator indicates the number of complete turns or "gyres" until a leaf arrives at the initial position. The denominator indicates the number of leaves in the arrangement. This can be demonstrated by the following:

• alternate leaves have an angle of 180° (or 1/2)
• 120° (or 1/3) : three leaves in one circle
• 144° (or 2/5) : five leaves in two gyres
• 135° (or 3/8) : eight leaves in three gyres.

Divisions of the blade[link]

A leaf with laminar structure and pinnate venation

Two basic forms of leaves can be described considering the way the blade (lamina) is divided. A simple leaf has an undivided blade. However, the leaf shape may be formed of lobes, but the gaps between lobes do not reach to the main vein. A compound leaf has a fully subdivided blade, each leaflet of the blade separated along a main or secondary vein. Because each leaflet can appear to be a simple leaf, it is important to recognize where the petiole occurs to identify a compound leaf. Compound leaves are a characteristic of some families of higher plants, such as the Fabaceae. The middle vein of a compound leaf or a frond, when it is present, is called a rachis.

• Palmately compound leaves have the leaflets radiating from the end of the petiole, like fingers off the palm of a hand, e.g. Cannabis (hemp) and Aesculus (buckeyes).
• Pinnately compound leaves have the leaflets arranged along the main or mid-vein.
  • odd pinnate: with a terminal leaflet, e.g. Fraxinus (ash).
  • even pinnate: lacking a terminal leaflet, e.g. Swietenia (mahogany).
• Bipinnately compound leaves are twice divided: the leaflets are arranged along a secondary vein that is one of several branching off the rachis. Each leaflet is called a "pinnule". The pinnules on one secondary vein are called "pinna"; e.g. Albizia (silk tree).
• trifoliate (or trifoliolate): a pinnate leaf with just three leaflets, e.g. Trifolium (clover), Laburnum (laburnum).
• pinnatifid: pinnately dissected to the central vein, but with the leaflets not entirely separate, e.g. Polypodium, some Sorbus (whitebeams). In pinnately veined leaves the central vein in known as the midrib.

Characteristics of the petiole[link]

The overgrown petioles of Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) are edible.

Petiolated leaves have a petiole (leaf stem). Sessile leaves do not: The blade attaches directly to the stem. In clasping or decurrent leaves, the blade partially or wholly surrounds the stem, often giving the impression that the shoot grows through the leaf. When this is the case, the leaves are called "perfoliate", such as in Claytonia perfoliata. In peltate leaves, the petiole attaches to the blade inside from the blade margin.

In some Acacia species, such as the Koa Tree (Acacia koa), the petioles are expanded or broadened and function like leaf blades; these are called phyllodes. There may or may not be normal pinnate leaves at the tip of the phyllode.

A stipule, present on the leaves of many dicotyledons, is an appendage on each side at the base of the petiole resembling a small leaf. Stipules may be lasting and not be shed (a stipulate leaf, such as in roses and beans), or be shed as the leaf expands, leaving a stipule scar on the twig (an exstipulate leaf).

• The situation, arrangement, and structure of the stipules is called the "stipulation".
  • free
  • adnate : fused to the petiole base
  • ochreate : provided with ochrea, or sheath-formed stipules, e.g. rhubarb,
  • encircling the petiole base
  • interpetiolar : between the petioles of two opposite leaves.
  • intrapetiolar : between the petiole and the subtending stem

Venation[link]

Branching veins on underside of taro leaf

The venation within the bract of a Lime tree.

The lower epidermis of Tilia × europaea

Palmate-veined leaf

There are two subtypes of venation, namely, craspedodromous, where the major veins stretch up to the margin of the leaf, and camptodromous, when major veins extend close to the margin, but bend before they intersect with the margin.

• Feather-veined, reticulate (also called pinnate-netted, penniribbed, penninerved, or penniveined) – the veins arise pinnately from a single mid-vein and subdivide into veinlets. These, in turn, form a complicated network. This type of venation is typical for (but by no means limited to) dicotyledons.
• Three main veins branch at the base of the lamina and run essentially parallel subsequently, as in Ceanothus. A similar pattern (with 3-7 veins) is especially conspicuous in Melastomataceae.
• Palmate-netted, palmate-veined, fan-veined; several main veins diverge from near the leaf base where the petiole attaches, and radiate toward the edge of the leaf, e.g. most Acer (maples).
• Parallel-veined, parallel-ribbed, parallel-nerved, penniparallel – veins run parallel for the length of the leaf, from the base to the apex. Commissural veins (small veins) connect the major parallel veins. Typical for most monocotyledons, such as grasses.
• Dichotomous – There are no dominant bundles, with the veins forking regularly by pairs; found in Ginkgo and some pteridophytes.

Note that, although it is the more complex pattern, branching veins appear to be plesiomorphic and in some form were present in ancient seed plants as long as 250 million years ago. A pseudo-reticulate venation that is actually a highly modified penniparallel one is an autapomorphy of some Melanthiaceae, which are monocots, e.g. Paris quadrifolia (True-lover's Knot).

Morphology changes within a single plant[link]

• Homoblasty - Characteristic in which a plant has small changes in leaf size, shape, and growth habit between juvenile and adult stages.
• Heteroblasty - Characteristic in which a plant has marked changes in leaf size, shape, and growth habit between juvenile and adult stages.

Terminology[link]

Chart illustrating some leaf morphology terms

A portion of a coriander leaf

Shape[link]

Edge (margin)[link]

• ciliate: fringed with hairs
• crenate: wavy-toothed; dentate with rounded teeth, such as Fagus (beech)
• crenulate finely or shallowly crenate
• dentate: toothed, such as Castanea (chestnut)
  • coarse-toothed: with large teeth
  • glandular toothed: with teeth that bear glands.
• denticulate: finely toothed
• doubly toothed: each tooth bearing smaller teeth, such as Ulmus (elm)
• entire: even; with a smooth margin; without toothing
• lobate: indented, with the indentations not reaching to the center, such as many Quercus (oaks)
  • palmately lobed: indented with the indentations reaching to the center, such as Humulus (hop).
• serrate: saw-toothed with asymmetrical teeth pointing forward, such as Urtica (nettle)
• serrulate: finely serrate
• sinuate: with deep, wave-like indentations; coarsely crenate, such as many Rumex (docks)
• spiny or pungent: with stiff, sharp points, such as some Ilex (hollies) and Cirsium (thistles).

Tip[link]

Leaves showing various morphologies. Clockwise from upper left: tripartite lobation, elliptic with serrulate margin, peltate with palmate venation, acuminate odd-pinnate (center), pinnatisect, lobed, elliptic with entire margin

• acuminate: long-pointed, prolonged into a narrow, tapering point in a concave manner.
• acute: ending in a sharp, but not prolonged point
• cuspidate: with a sharp, elongated, rigid tip; tipped with a cusp.
• emarginate: indented, with a shallow notch at the tip.
• mucronate: abruptly tipped with a small short point, as a continuation of the midrib; tipped with a mucro.
• mucronulate: mucronate, but with a smaller spine.
• obcordate: inversely heart-shaped, deeply notched at the top.
• obtuse: rounded or blunt
• truncate: ending abruptly with a flat end, that looks cut off.

Base[link]

• acuminate: coming to a sharp, narrow, prolonged point.
• acute: coming to a sharp, but not prolonged point.
• auriculate: ear-shaped.
• cordate: heart-shaped with the notch towards the stalk.
• cuneate: wedge-shaped.
• hastate: shaped like an halberd and with the basal lobes pointing outward.
• oblique: slanting.
• reniform: kidney-shaped but rounder and broader than long.
• rounded: curving shape.
• sagittate: shaped like an arrowhead and with the acute basal lobes pointing downward.
• truncate: ending abruptly with a flat end, that looks cut off.

Surface[link]

• farinose: bearing farina; mealy, covered with a waxy, whitish powder.
• glabrous: smooth, not hairy.
• glaucous: with a whitish bloom; covered with a very fine, bluish-white powder.
• glutinous: sticky, viscid.
• papillate, or papillose: bearing papillae (minute, nipple-shaped protuberances).
• pubescent: covered with erect hairs (especially soft and short ones).
• punctate: marked with dots; dotted with depressions or with translucent glands or colored dots.
• rugose: deeply wrinkled; with veins clearly visible.
• scurfy: covered with tiny, broad scalelike particles.
• tuberculate: covered with tubercles; covered with warty prominences.
• verrucose: warted, with warty outgrowths.
• viscid, or viscous: covered with thick, sticky secretions.

The leaf surface is also host to a large variety of microorganisms; in this context it is referred to as the phyllosphere.

Hairiness[link]

Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) leaves are covered in dense, stellate trichomes.

Scanning electron microscope image of trichomes on the lower surface of a Coleus blumei (coleus) leaf.

"Hairs" on plants are properly called trichomes. Leaves can show several degrees of hairiness. The meaning of several of the following terms can overlap.

• arachnoid, or arachnose: with many fine, entangled hairs giving a cobwebby appearance.
• barbellate: with finely barbed hairs (barbellae).
• bearded: with long, stiff hairs.
• bristly: with stiff hair-like prickles.
• canescent: hoary with dense grayish-white pubescence.
• ciliate: marginally fringed with short hairs (cilia).
• ciliolate: minutely ciliate.
• floccose: with flocks of soft, woolly hairs, which tend to rub off.
• glabrescent: losing hairs with age.
• glabrous: no hairs of any kind present.
• glandular: with a gland at the tip of the hair.
• hirsute: with rather rough or stiff hairs.
• hispid: with rigid, bristly hairs.
• hispidulous: minutely hispid.
• hoary: with a fine, close grayish-white pubescence.
• lanate, or lanose: with woolly hairs.
• pilose: with soft, clearly separated hairs.
• puberulent, or puberulous: with fine, minute hairs.
• pubescent: with soft, short and erect hairs.
• scabrous, or scabrid: rough to the touch.
• sericeous: silky appearance through fine, straight and appressed (lying close and flat) hairs.
• silky: with adpressed, soft and straight pubescence.
• stellate, or stelliform: with star-shaped hairs.
• strigose: with appressed, sharp, straight and stiff hairs.
• tomentose: densely pubescent with matted, soft white woolly hairs.
  • cano-tomentose: between canescent and tomentose.
  • felted-tomentose: woolly and matted with curly hairs.
• tomentulose: minutely or only slightly tomentose.
• villous: with long and soft hairs, usually curved.
• woolly:' with long, soft and tortuous or matted hairs.

Adaptations[link]

The embedded lists in this article may contain items that are not encyclopedic. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (February 2008)

Poinsettia bracts are leaves which have evolved red pigmentation in order to attract insects and birds to the central flowers, an adaptive function normally served by petals (which are themselves leaves highly modified by evolution).

In the course of evolution, leaves have adapted to different environments in the following ways:

• A certain surface structure avoids moistening by rain and contamination (See Lotus effect).
• Sliced leaves reduce wind resistance.
• Hairs on the leaf surface trap humidity in dry climates and create a boundary layer reducing water loss.
• Waxy leaf surfaces reduce water loss.
• Large surface area provides large area for sunlight and shade for plant to minimize heating and reduce water loss.
• In more or less opaque or buried in the soil leaves, translucent windows filter the light before the photosynthesis takes place at the inner leaf surfaces (e.g. Fenestraria).
• Succulent leaves store water and organic acids for use in CAM photosynthesis.
• Aromatic oils, poisons or pheromones produced by leaf borne glands deter herbivores (e.g. eucalypts).
• Inclusions of crystalline minerals deter herbivores (e.g. silica phytoliths in grasses, raphides in Araceae).
• Petals attracts pollinators.
• Spines protect the plants (e.g. cacti).
• Insect traps feed the plants directly (see carnivorous plants).
• Bulbs store food and water (e.g. onions).
• Tendrils allow the plant to climb (e.g. peas).
• Bracts and pseudanthia (false flowers) replace normal flower structures when the true flowers are greatly reduced (e.g. Spurges).

Interactions with other organisms[link]

Some insects mimic leaves (Kallima inachus shown)

A girl playing with leaves

Leaf after being eaten by Caterpillar

Dew on a leaf

Although not as nutritious as other organs such as fruit, leaves provide a food source for many organisms. Animals which eat leaves are known as folivores. The leaf is one of the most vital parts of the plant, and plants have evolved protection against folivores such as tannins, chemicals which hinder the digestion of proteins and have an unpleasant taste.

Some animals have cryptic adaptations to avoid their own predators. For example, some caterpillars will create a small home in the leaf by folding it over themselves, while other herbivores and their prey mimic the appearance of the leaf. Some insects, such as the katydid, take this even further, moving from side to side much like a leaf does in the wind.

Bibliography[link]

• Leaves: The formation, charactistics and uses of hundred of leaves in all parts of the world by Ghillean Tolmie Prance. 324 photographic plates in black and white, and colour by Kjell B Sandved 256 pages^[8]

Footnotes[link]

See also[link]

• Abscission – loss of leaves
• Cladode - a flattened photsynthetic stem, if very leaf-like then it is called a Phylloclade
• Cladophyll – a stem-like leaf part (synonym: phyllode)
• Evolution of leaves
• Guttation – beads of fluid forming at leaf margins
• Leaf area index
• Leaf protein concentrate
• Leaf Sensor – a device that measures the moisture level in plant leaves
• Vernation – sprouting of leaves, also the arrangement of leaves in the bud

External links[link]

• Media related to Leaves at Wikimedia Commons
• The Wiktionary entry for leaf
• VASCULAR PLANT SYSTEMATICS Section B. General Characters and Character States: Position and Arrangement
• Science aid: Leaf Leaf structure and transpiration resource for teens.

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Notable instruments
Höfner 500/1 Rickenbacker 4001S Epiphone Texan Gibson Les Paul Epiphone Casino Martin D-28

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles.^[1] With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.

According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness.^[2] As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.

He has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, and released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist. He has taken part in projects to help international charities, and has been an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he has been active in campaigns against landmines and seal hunting, and supported efforts such as Make Poverty History. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 25,000 songs, including those written by Buddy Holly, as well as the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. He is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010. He has been married three times and is the father of five children.

Childhood[link]

McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had twelve years earlier, "satisfied her state registry requirements" for nursing, writes Beatles biographer Bob Spitz.^[3] His father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was absent at his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer fire fighter during World War II.^[3] McCartney has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944, and though they were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, "religion did not play a part in their upbringing" according to biographer Barry Miles, as McCartney's father was a Protestant turned agnostic.^[4]

In 1947 he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School, by 1952 Joseph Williams Junior School,^[5] where he passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of ninety examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute.^[6] However, when he took his A-level exams at age nineteen, he passed only one subject – Art.^[7] In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison,^[8] who had also passed the exam, meaning they could both go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work.^[9]

20 Forthlin Road now attracts large numbers of tourists.

In 1955 the McCartneys moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived through 1964.^[10] Paul was the first member of his family to own a car and his mother rode a bicycle to houses where she worked as a midwife; he describes an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning" the "streets ... thick with snow".^[11] On 31 October 1956, when he was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.^[12] The loss of his mother at fourteen was later a point of relation with John Lennon, whose mother Julia also died when he was young, after being struck by a car when he was seventeen.^[13]

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his son to be musical. He kept an upright piano in the front room that he purchased from Epstein's North End Music Stores.^[14] His father, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.^[15] Jim McCartney used to point out the bass parts in songs on the radio, and often took his son to local brass band concerts.^[16] Jim gave his son a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday,^[17] but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg,^[18] Paul traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, realising it would be too difficult to sing, "with a trumpet stuck in your mouth."^[17] Being left-handed, he found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his right-handed guitar strung the opposite way. He then restrung his guitar and after some adjustments, found it easier to play.^[17] McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and an early tune which became, "When I'm Sixty-Four", on the piano, for which, despite his father's advice, he took only a couple of lessons for, preferring instead he says, to learn "by ear."^[14] He was heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues music, and has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school. The first song he ever sang on a stage in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.^[19]

Musical career[link]

1957–1960: The Quarrymen[link]

McCartney met Lennon and the Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957, when he was fifteen years old.^[20] He joined the group soon after, and formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in 1960 by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass.^[21] By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "the Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They changed the name of the group to "the Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best on drums prior to the first of what would be five engagements in Hamburg, Germany.^[22]

1960–1970: The Beatles[link]

McCartney (left) in 1964 with Beatles bandmates Harrison and Lennon

From August 1960 the Beatles were booked by Allan Williams to perform in Hamburg, and during their extended stays there over the next two years, they performed as the resident group at two of Bruno Koschmider's clubs, the Indra, then the Kaiserkeller, and upon returns to Liverpool, at the Cavern Club.^[23] In 1961 Sutcliffe left the band, and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.^[24] The Beatles recorded their first published music in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".^[25] The recording would later bring them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962.^[26] Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May of that year.^[27] After replacing Best with Ringo Starr in August, they became increasingly popular in the UK during 1963 and in the US in 1964, in a frenzied adolation that became known as "Beatlemania",^[28] during which McCartney was dubbed, "the cute Beatle", according to Miles.^[29] In 1965 they were each appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).^[30]

After the recording of the Beatles hit "Yesterday" (1965), McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale London, to ask if they would record an electronic version of the song, but he never followed up.^[31] When visiting artist John Dunbar's flat in London, he would bring along tapes he had compiled at then girlfriend Jane Asher's home,^[32] mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.^[33] Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966). He referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".^[34] In 1966 he rented a ground floor and basement flat from Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.^[35] The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately come of the endeavour as Apple and the Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.^[35] After touring almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than 1,400 live performances internationally,^[36] the group gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.^[37]

They continued to work in the recording studio and before their break-up in 1970 produced what some critics consider to be their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968) and Abbey Road (1969).^[38] Between 1963 and 1970 the group released twenty-two UK singles and twelve LPs, of which seventeen of the singles and eleven of the LPs became number ones.^[39] The band topped the US Billboard Hot 100 twenty times, and recorded fourteen number one albums.^[40] Lennon and McCartney became one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.^[41] McCartney's contributions to the band's hit song's include: "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964), "Yesterday" (1965), Paperback Writer" and "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Hello, Goodbye" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), "Get Back (1969)", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" (1970).^[42]

In March 1969 he married Linda Eastman, whom he first met in May 1967. The couple had their first child together, Mary, named after Paul's late mother, in August 1969.^[43] In October 1969 a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash, but it was quickly proven false when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family with the caption, "Paul is Still With Us."^[44]

1970–1981: Wings[link]

McCartney during a Wings concert, 1976

After the Beatles break-up in 1970 McCartney continued his musical career, releasing his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970, which contained the stand-out track "Maybe I'm Amazed", written for Linda.^[45] With the exception of some vocal contributions from her, it is a "one-man album with Paul playing all the instruments" himself, writes Beatles biographer Bill Harry.^[46] In 1971 Paul collaborated with Linda on a second album, Ram, a UK number one which included the co-written US number one hit song, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".^[47] Later that year, the pair were joined by ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, and release their first album together, Wild Life. In September 1971 the McCartney family added a second child, Stella, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers.^[48]

In 1973 McCartney wrote Wings' first US number one, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, and his collaboration with Linda and former Beatles' producer George Martin resulted in the James Bond theme song and Wings hit, "Live and Let Die", which was nominated for an Oscar, and earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.^[49] In 1974 Paul wrote a second US number one for Wings, "Band on the Run"; the acclaimed album of the same name, Wings' third, was a massive success that became their first platinum LP.^[50] They followed with the chart topping LPs, Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).^[51] In September 1977 a third child was born to the McCartneys, a son they named James,^[52] and in November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre" was fast becoming "the best-selling single in UK history", writes Beatles biographer Peter Doggett.^[53] Achieving double the sales of the previous record holder, "She Loves You", the track would go on to sell 2.5 million copies, and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?".^[54] In 1977 he released Thrillington, an orchestral arrangement of Ram, under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington^[55], with a cover designed by Hipgnosis.^[56]

While London Town (1978) and Back to the Egg (1979) passed with little critical or commercial notice,^[57] the latter involved McCartney's collaboration with a rock supergroup dubbed, "the Rockestra", though credited to Wings, that included Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham.^[58] Active through 1981, Wings produced seven studio albums, five of which topped the US charts,^[59] as well as their live triple LP, Wings over America,^[60] one of few live albums ever to achieve the top spot in America.^[61] They also recorded six US number one singles including, "Listen to What the Man Said", "Silly Love Songs, "With a Little Luck", and "Coming Up".^[62]

1982–1989[link]

In 1980 he released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, and as with his first, he composed all the music and performed the instrumentation himself. The album contained the hit songs "Coming Up", "Waterfalls", and "Temporary Secretary".^[63] In 1982 he collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin produced number one hit, "Ebony and Ivory", included on McCartney's Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller.^[64] The following year he worked with Jackson on the US number one, "Say Say Say", and he earned a UK number one with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".^[65]

In 1984 he wrote, produced, and starred in the feature film Give My Regards to Broad Street, a musical which "was savagely panned by the critics" according to Harry; and described by Variety as: "Characterless, bloodless, and pointless."^[66] Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track",^[67] which fared much better, reaching number one in the UK, and producing the hit single, "No More Lonely Nights", featuring Gilmour on lead guitar.^[68]

He collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), who co-wrote more than half the songs on the LP, and in 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, a Russia-only title that contained eighteen covers which he recorded over the course of two days.^[69] In 1989 he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders including Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood to record a new version of "Ferry Cross the Mersey", originally recorded twenty-five years earlier by Gerry and the Pacemakers, to generate money for the appeal fund of the Hillsborough disaster, which occurred in April that year when ninety-five Liverpool F.C. fans died as a result of their injuries. The recording was a number one hit in the UK.^[70] In 1989 he released Flowers in the Dirt, a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello which included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins.^[71]

1990–2000[link]

In 1990 he released the triple LP, Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained select performances from The Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade.^[72] The following year he ventured into orchestral music, when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with Carl Davis to release Liverpool Oratorio; involving opera singers Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White, with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral.^[73] The Guardian was critical of the work stating that the music is, "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo", and the piece has "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole".^[74] In response, McCartney wrote a defensive letter to the paper, which they published, where he states: "Happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to ... let people judge for themselves the merits of the work."^[74]

During the 1990s he twice collaborated with Youth of Killing Joke under the alias the Fireman, and released the electronica albums: Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and Rushes (1998).^[75] Released in 1993, the rock album Off the Ground was supported by "The New World Tour", which produced the album, Paul Is Live later that year.^[76] Starting in 1994 he took a four-year hiatus from his solo career to work on Apple's the Beatles Anthology project with Harrison, Starr and Martin. He recorded a radio series called "Oobu Joobu" in 1995, for the American network Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio".^[77] Also in 1995 Prince Charles presented him with an Honorary Fellowship of The Royal College of Music, "kind of amazing for somebody who doesn't read a note of music", commented McCartney,^[78] and in December 1996 he was informed that he was to be named in the 1997 New Year Honours and knighted for services to music; his ceremony took place in March 1997.^[79]

In 1997 he released the rock album Flaming Pie, and the classical work Standing Stone; in 1998 Rushes, his second electronica album as the Fireman.^[80] Run Devil Run (1999), featuring Ian Paice and Gilmour, was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals, something he said he had "wanted to do for years", having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died in April 1998 after losing a seventeen-month battle with cancer.^[81] He contributed a song, "Nova", to a tribute album of choral music dedicated to her called, A Garland for Linda (2000).^[82] He continued his experimentation with orchestral music on Working Classical (1999), and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in March of the same year.^[83] In May 2000 he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and in August he released the electronica album, Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s.^[84]

2001–present[link]

In 2001 McCartney released a live album of acoustic-only performances called, Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).^[85] Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, he was inspired to take a lead role in organising The Concert for New York City, and his studio album release that year Driving Rain included the song "Freedom", written for the event as a response to the tragedy.^[86] He toured in support of Driving Rain and in 2002 released the double live album Back in the U.S. (released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World.^[87] In November 2002, on the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.^[88] He has also participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing "Freedom" in the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI^[89] and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX.^[90]

McCartney and Ringo Starr promoting The Beatles: Rock Band in 2009.

In 2005 he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and the electronica offering, Twin Freaks; a collaborative project with bootleg producer and remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career.^[91] In 2006 he released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum; the rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007, and in 2008, his third Fireman release, Electric Arguments. In 2008 he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture.^[92] In 2009, more than forty-five years after the Beatles first appeared on American television during The Ed Sullivan Show, he returned to the same New York theatre to perform on Late Show with David Letterman.^[93] In 2010 he was honoured by Barack Obama with the Gershwin Prize for his contributions to popular music in a live show for the White House with performances by Stevie Wonder, Lang Lang and others.^[94] He returned to the White House later that year as a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

McCartney's enduring fame has made him a popular choice to open new venues. In 2009 he played three sold out concerts at the newly built Citi Field in Queens, New York, constructed to replace Shea Stadium, and he released a double live album culled from those performances called, Good Evening New York City later that year.^[95] In 2010 he opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,^[96] and in 2011 he performed the first concerts at the new Yankee Stadium, and released the classical work, "Ocean's Kingdom". He has been touring since 2001 with guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr. An upcoming tribute album is expected in June 2012, to coincide with his 70th birthday, featuring recordings of his songs by Kiss, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, Brian Wilson, Willie Nelson, Steve Miller, B.B. King and others.^[97] Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, was released in February 2012,^[98] that same month he was honoured as MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Grammy Awards.^[99]

Musicianship[link]

As a musician, McCartney was largely self-taught, musicologist Ian MacDonald describes his approach as, "by nature drawn to music's formal aspects yet wholly untutoured ... [He] produced technically 'finished' work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears."^[100]

Bass guitar

He has been acknowledged by a diverse group of bass players including, Sting, long-time Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo, and Colin Moulding of XTC.^[101] McCartney is known to play using a plectrum, or pick almost exclusively, but he occasionally plays fingerstyle as well.^[102] During his early years with the Beatles he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass live and when recording, though in 1965 he began using a Rickenbacker 4001s for recording, while consistently using Vox amplifiers.^[103] In recent years he has used Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers live and while recording. McCartney confirms the influence of Motown on his playing, in particular that of James Jamerson, whom he described as a "hero", and included with Brian Wilson as his "two biggest influences".^[104]

Whereas MacDonald identifies "She's a Woman" as the point in time which McCartney's bass playing began to evolve dramatically,^[106] Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singles out Rubber Soul as the time when his bass playing, "began to come into its own", particularly on "The Word".^[105] Authors Tony Bacon and Gareth Morgan agree, calling his "groove" on the track, "a high point in pop bass playing" and "the first proof on a recording of his serious technical ability on the instrument."^[107] MacDonald infers the influence of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", and Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour", American soul tracks from which McCartney absorbed elements and drew inspiration as he "delivers his most spontaneous bass-part to date". He also played piano on the recording.^[108]

Bacon and Morgan describe his bassline for the Beatles' song "Rain" as "an astonishing piece of playing ... [McCartney] thinking in terms of both rhythm and 'lead bass' ... [choosing] the area of the neck ... he correctly perceives will give him clarity for melody without rendering his sound too thin for groove."^[109] MacDonald calls it the Beatles "finest B-side", its "clangorously saturated texture resona[ting] around McCartney's bass".^[110] He describes the bassline as "so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track", and he draws attention to the influence of Indian classical music in "exotic melismas in the bass part".^[110]

Acoustic guitar

Examples of his acoustic guitar playing on Beatles tracks include: "Yesterday", "I'm Looking Through You", "Michelle", "Blackbird", "I Will", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Rocky Raccoon".^[111] He played an Epiphone Texan on many, if not most of his acoustic recordings, but he has also used a Martin D-28.^[112]

Electric guitar

He played lead electric guitar on several Beatles' recordings, including what MacDonald describes as a "fiercely angular slide guitar solo" on "Drive My Car",^[113] which he played on an Epiphone Casino, about which McCartney said: "If I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this."^[114] He also contributed what MacDonald calls "a startling guitar solo" on the Harrison composition, "Taxman", and the "shrieking" guitar on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Helter Skelter", as well as "a coruscating pseudo-Indian" solo on "Good Morning Good Morning".^[115] In recent years he has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly while performing live.

Piano

He played a piano on many Beatles' songs including, "Every Little Thing", "For No One", "A Day in the Life", "Hello, Goodbye", "Hey Jude", "Lady Madonna", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road".^[116]

Creative outlets[link]

During the 1960s, McCartney delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through artist John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists.^[117] He later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London — where Lennon first met Yoko Ono.^[118] The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with Miles, whose underground newspaper, the International Times, McCartney helped to start.^[119] Miles would become de facto manager of Apple's short-lived Zapple Records label,^[120] and he wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years From Now (1997).^[121]

While living at then girlfriend Jane Asher's parent's house, he took piano lessons arranged by Jane's mother, provided by a teacher from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a school Beatles' producer Martin had previously attended.^[122] McCartney studied composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.^[123] He later wrote and released several pieces of modern classical music and ambient electronica, as well as writing poetry and painting. He is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an arts school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys. The 1837 building, which he attended during his schooldays, had become derelict by the mid-1980s, however, on 7 June 1996, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the redeveloped building.^[124]

Painting

In 1966 he met art gallery-owner Robert Fraser, whose flat was visited by many well-known artists, some of which McCartney met, including; Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton, and it was at Fraser's flat where McCartney first learned about art appreciation.^[125] He later started buying paintings by Magritte, using his painting of an apple for the Apple Records logo, and McCartney now owns one of Magritte's easels and a pair of his spectacles.^[126]

McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's Long Island studio.^[127] He took up painting in 1983,^[128] and in 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of John Lennon, Andy Warhol, and David Bowie) for the first time in Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries.^[129] The first UK exhibition of his work was opened in Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint" – as Lennon had.^[129]

In October 2000, Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."^[130] McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the Isle of Man Post in 2002, and according to BBC News, he is the first major rock star in the world to do so.^[131]

Writing and poetry

When he was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books, and his father was interested in crosswords and invited he and his brother Michael to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power", says McCartney.^[132] He was later inspired – in his school years – by Alan Durband, an English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute.^[133] Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to Geoffrey Chaucer's works.^[134]

In 2001 he published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.^[135] In the foreword of the book, he explains: "When I was a teenager ... I had an overwhelming desire to have a poem published in the school magazine. I wrote something deep and meaningful——which was promptly rejected——and I suppose I have been trying to get my own back ever since."^[136] Years later, he wrote a poem about the death of his childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan.^[136] In 2005 he collaborated with author Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write, High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, which The Guardian labelled an "anti-capitalist children's book".^[137]

Film

He was interested in animated films as a child, and in 1981 he asked Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song. McCartney was the writer and producer and he also added some of the character voices.^[138] In 1992 he worked with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, which won both of them a BAFTA award.^[139] In 2004 they worked together on the animated short film, Tropic Island Hum. In 1995 he made a guest appearance in the "Lisa the Vegetarian" episode of The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about the Grateful Dead.^[140]

In May 2000 he released Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes film and photographs that he and Linda took of their family and bands.^[141] Interspersed throughout the eighty-eight minute film is an interview by Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album, McCartney, and was one of the producers of the documentary.^[142]

Lifestyle[link]

Drugs

McCartney live in Dublin, Ireland, 2010

McCartney's introduction to drugs started in Hamburg, Germany, when the Beatles would play for long hours and were often using Preludin to maintain energy, sometimes supplied by friend Astrid Kirchherr. According to McCartney, he would usually take only one, but Lennon would often take four or five by the end of a night.^[143] He recalls getting "very high" and "giggling uncontrollably" when the Beatles were introduced to marijuana by Bob Dylan in a New York hotel room in 1964.^[144] His use of which soon after became habitual,^[145] and according to Miles, any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life".^[146] During the filming of Help!, he claims he occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines.^[147] Director Dick Lester says that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into using heroin, but he refused.^[147] He was introduced to cocaine by art dealer Robert Fraser, and it was readily available during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.^[148] McCartney admits that he used the drug for about a year but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt after the drug wore off.^[149]

While initially reluctant to try LSD, he eventually did so in the fall of 1966 with friend Tara Browne.^[150] He took his second "acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a Sgt. Pepper studio session.^[151] He later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society."^[152] His attitude about cannabis was made public in 1967, when he added his name to a 24 July advertisement in The Times which called for its legalisation, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was produced by a group called Soma and was signed by sixty-five people, including Members of Parliament, the Beatles, Epstein, RD Laing, Francis Crick, and Graham Greene.^[153]

Though never arrested by Norman Pilcher's Drug Squad, as Lennon, Harrison, and Mick Jagger had been,^[154] in 1972 Swedish police fined him for cannabis possession, and soon after Scottish police found plants growing on his farm.^[155] He was again arrested for marijuana possession in 1975, and in January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for an eleven concert tour of Japan, as McCartney was going through customs, officials found approximately 8 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage, and he was arrested and taken to a local jail while the Japanese government decided what to do. After ten days, he was released without charge and deported.^[156] He was again arrested for possession of marijuana in 1984 and in 1997, he spoke out in support of decriminalisation, stating "People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong."^[157]

Activism

Paul and Linda became outspoken animal rights activists after their vegetarianism was realised when Paul happened to notice through a window, lambs in a field, as they ate a meal of lamb.^[158] He has also credited the 1942 Disney film Bambi, in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter, as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in animal rights.^[159] In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights.^[160] In 1999 he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.^[161]

McCartney wearing a shirt that reads "no more land mines"

Following his marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against landmines, becoming patrons of Adopt-A-Minefield.^[162] In 2003 he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity.^[163] He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt during the Back in the World tour.^[164] In 2006 the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the seal hunt, this would be their final public appearance together. Their arrival sparked attention in Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance.^[165] The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier Danny Williams on the CNN show Larry King Live. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business.^[166] McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade^[167] and supports the Make Poverty History campaign.^[168]

He has been involved with several charity recordings and performances, such as the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (1989) following the Hillsborough disaster.^[169] In 2004 he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi,^[170] and in 2008 he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami.^[171]

In 2009, he wrote to the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and asked him why he wasn't a vegetarian, McCartney explains: "He wrote back very kindly, saying, my doctors tell me that I must eat meat. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don't think that's right. So we had a little correspondence [and] I think now he's vegetarian most of the time. I think he's now being told ... that he can get his protein somewhere else. It's a little old-fashioned to think that he can only get it from meat [and] It just doesn't seem right – the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, 'Hey guys, don't harm sentient beings ... Oh, and by the way, I'm having a steak.'"^[172]

Football

He attended the 1968 FA Cup Final played by West Bromwich Albion against the Everton Football Club, and after the match, shared cigarettes and whisky with other fans.^[173] Though he has publicly professed support for Everton,^[174] he has also shown support for Liverpool F.C., as in 1968 when he was photographed wearing their rosette.^[175] The ex-Liverpool footballer, Albert Stubbins, was shown on the Sgt. Pepper cover,^[176] and the video for his song "Pipes of Peace" (1983) recreated the 1915 Christmas football game played between German and British troops during World War I.^[177] At the end of "Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)" the crowd chants "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes it to "Kenny Dalglish!", referring to then Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert, Gordon Smith, former football player for the Rangers and Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew Kenny Dalglish"^[178]

He attended the 1986 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton,^[173] and performed at the Liverpool F.C. Anfield stadium in 2008, as a part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year. Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sang with McCartney on "Band on the Run", and played drums on "Back in the U.S.S.R.".^[179] Ono and Olivia Harrison attended the concert, along with Ken Dodd, and the former Liverpool F.C. football manager Rafael Benítez.^[180] In 2008 he ended speculation about his allegiance when he said: "Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool."^[181]

Meditation

On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton, and later went to Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM).^[182] "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra ... I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get."^[183] The time McCartney later spent in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as nearly all of the songs that would later be recorded for The White Album and Abbey Road were composed there.^[184] Although he was told never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he admitted he told Linda, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan.^[185] In 2009 McCartney and Starr headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.^[186]

Personal relationships[link]

Girlfriends[link]

Dot Rhone

McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.^[187] According to Spitz, Rhone feels McCartney had a compulsion to control situations, chosing clothes and make-up for Rhone, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot's,^[188] and at least once insisting she have it re-styled, to disappointing effect.^[189] When he first went to Hamburg with the Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when they played there again in 1962.^[190] The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage, when according to Spitz, McCartney now "free of obligation", ended the engagement.^[191]

Jane Asher

He first met the British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.^[192] The two began a relationship and he took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in St. John's Wood.^[193] He wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me", and "I'm Looking Through You".^[194] They had a five-year relationship, and planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement after she discovered he had become involved with another woman, Francie Schwartz.^[195]

Wives[link]

Linda Eastman

McCartney performing with wife Linda in 1976.

Linda Eastman was a music fan who once commented: "All my teen years were spent with an ear to the radio", and who would at times be truant from school to instead see artists such as: Fabian, Bobby Darin, and Chuck Berry.^[196] She was a popular photographer with groups such as: the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, and the Beatles, whom she first met at Shea Stadium in 1966, about which she commented: "It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the facination faded fast and I found it was Paul I liked."^[197] The pair first properly met in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club,^[198] during her UK assignment to take photographs of rock musicians in London,^[199] Paul remembers: "The night Linda and I met, I spotted her across a crowded club, and although I would normally have been nervous chatting her up, I realised I had to ... Pushiness worked for me that night!"^[197] Linda said this about their meeting: "I was quite shameless really. I was with somebody else [that night] ... and I saw Paul at the other side of the room. He looked so beautiful that I made up my mind I would have to pick him up."^[197] The pair were married in 1969; he describes their relationship: "We had a lot of fun together ... just the nature of how we are, our favourite thing really is to just hang, to have fun. And Linda's very big on just following the moment."^[200] He also added, "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married and it was nearly called off ... [its] miraculous that we made it. But we did."^[201]

They collaborated musically after the break-up of the Beatles, and later formed Wings together in 1971, a commercially successful band that was active through 1981.^[202] They were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation PETA.^[203] They had four children – Linda's daughter Heather (legally adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James – and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998.^[204] After her death, Paul stated in The Daily Mail: "I got a counsellor because I knew that I would need some help. He was great, particularly in helping me get rid of my guilt [about wishing I'd been] perfect all the time ... a real bugger. But then I thought, hang on a minute. We're just human. That was the beautiful thing about our marriage. We were just a boyfriend and girlfriend having babies."^[205]

Heather Mills

In 2002 he married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner.^[206] In 2003, the couple had a child, Beatrice Milly, the first name in honour of Heather's late mother, the second for one of Paul's aunts.^[207] They separated in April 2006 and were divorced in March 2008.^[208] In 2004 he commented on media animosity toward his partners, "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."^[209]

Nancy Shevell

He married New Yorker Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London on 9 October 2011. The wedding was a "low-key affair" attended by a group of around 30 family and friends.^[210] The couple had been dating since November 2007.^[211] A breast cancer survivor,^[212] she is a member of the board of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority as well as vice president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight.^[213]

Beatles[link]

John Lennon

Despite a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in 1974, and played music together on two occasions, the only times since the Beatles break-up in 1970.^[214] In later years however, the two grew apart.^[215] While McCartney would often phone, he was apprehensive about the reception he would receive, as during one call when he was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!"^[216] In McCartney's effort to avoid talking with him only about business, they often spoke of cats, baking bread, or babies.^[217]

On 24 April 1976,^[218] the two were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live together at Lennon's home in New York City, during which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer for the Beatles to reunite, and while they seriously considered going to the SNL studio just a few blocks away, they decided it was "too late" and according to Lennon, this was the last time he and McCartney ever spent time together.^[219] This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film Two of Us.^[220] His last telephone call to Lennon, just days before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly, he said this about the phone call: "[It is] a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up."^[221]