426 The Rev. P. Kerra on the Origin of Buds. 
month of August furnished with a number of young shoots pro- 
truding from its upper surface. These shoots were evidently 
formed posterior to the felling of the stem ; and if the doctrine 
was true, they were of course traceable to the centre. Accord- 
ingly, having taken a number of transverse sections of the stem 
of the above Willow, I found that I could, in all cases, trace the 
path of the progress of the bud by means of the streak of paren- 
chyma, extending from the centre, or nearly so, to the base of 
the shoot. There were many other streaks terminating, not in 
shoots, but in an emerging point between the alburnum and 
bark, which point contained, no doubt, a bud that might have 
been protruded into a shoot in some future year, if the tree had 
been allowed to continue growing. 
There is a capability afforded no doubt in the annual protru- 
sion of the bud into every additional layer of alburnum, that ac- 
counts well for the ready supply and regeneration of buds which 
almost all perennials furnish when lopped or accidentally muti- 
lated. The fact is evidently hostile, as far as it goes, to the 
opinions of Du Hamel and of Knight, but it does not amount 
to a refutation of them: for that which is true of the Willow 
may not be true of every other tree. There are some trees in 
which no trace can be observed of the horizontal streak of 
parenchyma, from the origin of the shoot to the centre of the 
stem. Saiveccrs 
At the same time, the opinions of Du Hamel and of Knight, 
though strongly sanctioned, are not altogether indisputably 
established by the facts which they adduce in support of them. 
For it may be said that the result of their experiments would 
have been the same, whether we suppose buds to originate at 
the centre, or at the circumference. The buds had, indeed, 
gained the circumference; but whence they came, or by what 
route, there is no positive evidence to show. Yet this question 
might 
