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AN ACCOUNT OF A REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF 

 ANOMALOUS STRUCTURE IN THE TRUNK 

 OF AN EXOGENOUS TREE. 



BY JOHN LINDLEY, ESQ., F.R.S., &c. 

 Professor of Botany in the University of London. 



fPHE following case will, perhaps, be found to offer an inte- 

 resting proof of the manner in which the wood is formed 

 in the trunks of Dicotyledonous, or Exogenous Trees : 



In the year 1828, I was informed that a poplar-tree had been 

 felled in a small court belonging to Mr. Nicol, near the Palace 

 of St. James's, which exhibited the singular anomaly of one 

 tree growing within another ; at the same time, I received a 

 specimen of a portion of the trunk of this supposed monster, 

 which was sufficiently in accordance with this statement to 

 justify the report, and to induce me to make further inquiries 

 upon the subject. Upon proceeding to the place where the 

 tree had grown, I fortunately found that the lower part still 

 remained in the ground ; and that this, with the fragment which 

 had been sent me, and those which were still scattered about, 

 contained nearly all the evidence that could be wished for of 

 the structure of the tree before it was cut down. The principal 

 specimen consisted of a shoot about four feet long, and an inch 

 in diameter at the thickest part, having the distinct marks of 

 the removal of a number of lateral shoots by a pruning-knife 

 the scars being as sharp and well defined as if the branches 

 had been recently dissevered. No trace of bark was visible 

 upon this specimen, except one small patch, half an inch in 

 diameter at the lower end. The shoot was inclosed within the 

 solid trunk of a poplar-tree, about thirty years old, of which it 

 occupied the centre, but with which it had no organic connexion 

 whatever, except at the two extremities, where it was conti- 

 nuous with the trunk itself. The wood within which it lay was 

 applied closely to its surface, having, in the course of its forma- 

 tion, followed accurately every projection or impression upon 

 the surface of the shoot ; so that a cross section of the trunk 

 would have exhibited no appearance whatever of this inclosed 

 shoot, except by a circular line half an high from the centre, 



