HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



lor 



having become separated to a certain extent, a solu- 

 tion containing pure carbonate of lime has filled up 

 the fissure or space intervening between the two beds, 

 from which beautiful and well-developed dog-tooth 

 spar has slowly crystallised out. 



The small fissures running through the limestone 

 cannot all have been produced simultaneously; on the 

 contrary, they have been formed from time to time, 

 and are being formed still. Carbonate of lime is 





Fig. 70. 



Fig. 71. — Plan. 



constantly being dissolved out by water, the solu- 

 tion fills up the cracks in the limestone, and calcite 

 crystallises out. This calcite in its turn may be re- 

 dissolved, and help to fill up other cracks. This action 

 has gone on ever since the consolidation of the lime- 

 stone, and it is going on to-day. Nature does not 

 work by fits and starts, but progresses slowly and 

 surely. 



E. Halse, A.R.S.M. 



ON THE PREMATURE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF BUDS. 



UNDER this heading I propose to examine 

 certain phenomena in vegetable morphology, 

 a knowledge of which is essential to the theory and 

 practice of gardening. The term "premature" is 

 apt to convey the idea that the result is abortive ; but 

 this is by no means what is here intended, although 

 abortive cases do occur, as will presently appear. 

 What is here intended amounts to this ; that from 

 innate vigour, or from external stimulus, buds are, or 

 may be, forced forward so to speak, and that this 

 forcing forward sometimes produces a different result 

 upon the bud to that which would otherwise have 

 taken place. For mere convenience, I propose to 

 employ the word budlet for all buds which still nestle 

 in the axil of the guardian leaf. To begin : let us 

 take the common oak for our study. It is May 1881, 

 and we pick an oak shoot, only just emerged from a 

 bud. In the axil of one leaf is a tiny acorn ; the 

 other axils are already occupied by minute shoot 

 budlets for 1882 ! These however are mutable, as 

 we shall presently see.* Thus we see the acorn is a 

 year in advance of the shoots. Turning to the Turkey 

 oak, we shall find all different. Here an 1881 bud is 

 either an 1882 shoot or an 1882 acorn ; in other 

 words it "bears an old wood," and there is no press- 

 ing forwards as in the common oak. The Sallow is 

 consequently like the Turkey oak, because it puts 

 forth its catkins before its leaves foliate ; and the same 

 occurs with the hazel, while the beech agrees with 

 the common oak. But to return to the shoot budlets 

 for 1882, which we left at peace in their axils. Let 

 us examine a few cases in which these oak budlets 

 are prematurely brought forward — I mean in the 

 more generally accepted sense of the word. First 

 let us take an example from the effect of season on 

 these budlets. If wet weather occur about August, 

 the budlets produce shoots, but these shoots succumb 

 to the first frost, having had no chance of perfecting 

 their auxiliary budlets. 



Turning now to galls, which are brought forth by 

 the puncture of insects, such as cynips (a genus of 

 the Hymenoptera, or bee tribes), we find that one 

 species (^Cynips Kollaris), by puncturing a budlet 

 brings forth, as if by magic, the well-known Devon- 

 shire or marble gall in 1881 ; but had it not been for 

 this puncture the budlet would not have produced a 

 shoot until 1S82. Cynips gemmea selects a similar 

 budlet, and the result is the imbricated gall known 

 as the artichoke gall. Turning to the oak apple, 

 here the parent cynips punctures a bud, not a budlet, 

 and the spongy gall produced is in no way premature, 

 but simultaneous with the spring shoots of the oak. 

 The bud scales may be sometimes seen at the base of 



* " Leaf bud" is a misnomer; no such buds exist. 



