430 The Rev. P. Kertu on the Origin of Buds. 
year of the stem's growth, before it has acquired anything of 
horizontal extent, that constitute the leading branches. 
Still it may be said that the origin of the bud is not yet 
fully accounted for, as it is its path that has been traced and 
rendered visible rather than its source. If we are to trace 
buds to their earliest indications of existence, it will be neces- 
sary to go back to the seed. In many seeds the rudiments of 
buds may be discovered in the protuberance that is usually 
formed at the collar of the embryo plant*, at first a simple vesi- 
cle; afterwards, as germination advances, an enlarged globule ; 
at last, in the matured shoot, a distinctly visible body ; one or 
more buds crowning the shoot, some protruding from its sur- 
face, and many, as it appears, imbedded in the alburnum. How 
have they been generated? and how dispersed or distributed 
through the plant? Either we must suppose that the embryo 
plant contains already in miniature all the buds to which it can 
ever possibly give development, arranged, as we must also sup- 
pose, in a determinate order, and waiting only the occurrence 
of such conditions as shall afford the nutriment necessary to ve- 
getable growth, and give dispersion or distribution to the buds 
by the general expansion of the whole. Or we must suppose 
_ that the bud or buds already existing in the embryo plant have 
the power of generating new buds, which the plant has the power 
of propelling to their appointed stations. 
The first hypothesis, which is that of Leibnitz, is encumbered 
with many difficulties, as embracing the doctrine of the invo- 
lution of all future generations in the first individual of the spe- 
cies ;—thus, baffling the powers of the most acute imagination, 
and explaining nothing after all. It is indeed so thoroughly 
enigmatical as to stand but very little chance of being ever gene- 
rally adopted. Yet if we embrace, without modification, the 
* Keith’s Phys. Bot. ii. 389. 
doctrine 
