The Rev. P. Keith on the Origin of Buds. 429 



in the lip, and sprung from buds, which, if not formed by, were 

 yet conveyed to, and deposited in, the alburnum through the 

 medium or agency of the proper juice, without having ever been 

 connected with the pith or central layers of the incipient stem, 

 and without having been annually protruded towards the cir- 

 cumference through each successive layer of wood- 

 Thus the doctrine of Du Hamel and of Knight is established 

 indisputably, at least to a certain degree, and corroborated by a 

 new and irrefragable proof; whilst the deductions of the writer 

 who combats it have been shown to possess less of the character 

 "of universality than we find to be claimed for them, and to rest 

 upon an induction of particulars rather too limited in its extent. 

 Particularly it has been shown by the above facts, that "an ad- 

 ventitious bud, or bud appearing on an old stem or branch," 

 does not always " originate in a germ generated at the develop- 

 ment of the stem or branch on which it appears," and that a 

 plant may contain latent germs besides those which are annually 

 carried outwards in a horizontal direction. 



If it be said that the central origin of the bud, together with 

 its horizontal protrusion, is the rule, the position will readily be 

 admitted, at least with regard to the subjects already examined, 

 and perhaps with regard to others also. Yet it is quite as 

 important to know the exception, as to know the rule itself; 

 because exceptions are the means which Nature has recourse to 

 in extraordinary cases. It may be but seldom that buds are 

 protruded in the way I have now stated, or that the shoots 

 issuing from them are augmented into branches of any great 

 importance. But the same thing may be said of buds issuing 

 from the surface of a large trunk, even after having finished their 

 horizontal course. They seldom attain to any great size, unless 

 the stem is truncated, when the others would doubtless do the 

 same ; and it is those shoots only that are protruded in the first 



year 



