BUDS AND SEEDS. 77 



are proved to be in fact altogether uninfluenced by 

 the stock, it may be safely asserted that the latter 

 ought to be considered as a medium only, or vehi- 

 cle, through which the vascular organs of the 

 former pass and are conveyed into the soil, whence 

 their spongioles and rootlets by the aid of electric 

 agency affect the introsusception of the nutritious 

 sap! ' 



Carpenter, in his " Vegetable Physiology," pub- 

 lished in 1873, says: "It has even occurred that 

 a single bud at the summit of a stem has pre- 

 served its life whilst the vitality of all the others, 

 and of the stem, has been in some manner des- 

 troyed; and that from this bud have been sent 

 down bundles of root fibres between the bark and 

 wood of the dead stem, which, when they have 

 reached the ground, afforded abundant supplies of 

 nutriment to the expanding bud; and this has sub- 

 sequently grown into a perfect tree, enclosing the 

 original dead stem within its trunk. The original 

 root- fibres are in such a case surrounded in the en- 

 suing year by another layer more resembling wood." 



A similar error is refuted by Paxton in his Maga- 

 zine of Botany, Volume III, p. 231. " Nothing," 

 he says, " can be more erroneous than the doctrine 

 that the buds of the graft send woody matter down- 

 wards which passes through its cellular substance 

 into the stock and covers the wood of the stock 



