SwiftUI Text is larger when empty

I have a simple SwiftUI Text:

Text(t) .font(Font.system(size: 9))

Strangely its ideal height seems to be larger when it is empty.

I initially observed this in a custom Layout container that wasn't working quite right. Eventually I looked at the height returned by v.dimensions(in:), and found that when t is non-empty the height is 11; when empty, it's 14.

Subsequently I observed similar behaviour in a regular VStack container.

Has anyone seen anything similar? Are there any properties that could affect this behaviour?

(This is on a watch - I don't know if that matters.)

SwiftUI Text is larger when empty
 
 
Q