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SCHOOL BOTANY 



STUDYING BUDS. 



What do we expect to accomplish by the dissection of 

 buds in the high school course in botany? Are we after fun- 

 damentals or are we simply "studying buds?" A good many 

 teachers seem content to assure the pupils that there are three 

 types of buds : the leaf buds, the flowers buds and mixed buds 

 containing both flowers and leaves; but a good teacher will 

 not stop here. The average pupils has an idea that all buds 

 contain flowers and it may require some little effort to con- 

 vince him that the leaf bud is far more abundant than any of 

 the others and that even this does not produce leaves, merely, 

 but a young twig as well. 



Then there are growing buds and resting buds, the later 

 often with scarcely more protection than the growing buds 

 though usually such buds are well protected by bud scales. If 

 we are after the fundamentals we shall have to show that the 

 bud scales are really transformed leaves or parts of leaves, 

 decide what becomes of them when the buds begin to grow 

 and examine various methods which plants have evolved for 

 protecting these growing points through the winter. 



A lilac bud is one of the best for showing that the bud 

 scales are transformed leaves. The transition from the scaly 

 parts without to what are clearly leaflike parts within is so 

 gradual that the most stupid pupil can see and understand. 

 In a second type of bud the scales have gone too far on their 

 way to ever be able to function as leaves and when spring 

 comes they fall off leaving a circular scar around the twig. 

 This scar is not noticeable in plants like the lilac in which 

 even the bud scales become leaflike. As an illustration of the 



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