Nature^ Longevity, and Size of Trees. 8 



The assumption, however, is, I apprehend, a false one. It 

 may be shewn, I think, in opposition to it, and it is the design 

 of the following observations to prove, that a tree is actually 

 a collection of distinct individual plants of the same species, 

 the production of a series of successive years, and that of these 

 plants each lives only one year, attains its full size within 

 the year, and makes provision, in the form of buds, for the 

 evolution of similar plants the following season : — the plants 

 of each year shooting up in spring from buds formed by the 

 plants of the previous year, and growing parasitically on the 

 persistent dead remains of these ; acquiring their maturity in 

 summer, and reaching to the height of a few inches only — 

 seldom at least exceeding one or two feet ; passing into the 

 state of old age and eventually dying in autumn — save only 

 the buds which survive the winter ; and speedily after their 

 death undergoing decomposition and disappearing, the dead 

 stems and roots, however, remaining, to serve the purposes 

 of a temporary soil, and of a permanent mechanical support to 

 the plants of next year. 



According to this view, a tree is nothing more than a con- 

 geries of annual and comparatively small- sized and slender 

 plants, the propagation of which, from year to year in all time 

 coming, is effectually provided for by buds ; and the accumu- 

 lation of which en masse^ by the living growing as parasites 

 on the residue of the dead, necessarily keeps pace with the 

 annual succession of plants. And if this be the true account 

 of the nature of trees, and of the mode of their formation, it 

 will of course follow, that a tree is an individual precisely in 

 the same sense as a body-corporate, or as a genealogical tree, 

 and that, — contrary to the common opinion, but consistently 

 with the principle before adverted to, — there will be no limit, 

 except from purely accidental causes, to the size it may attain, 

 or the number of years it may live. 



The views thus briefly set forth appear to me to possess 

 considerable interest in relation to the questions stated ;it the 

 outset, inasmuch as, if well founded, they supply us with 

 principles for the satisfactory solution of them, and thus servG^ 

 at once to give precision to our ideas, and to relieve our cu- 



