1 85 Y.J upon Views Entertained. 149 



With this brief analysis of what might bo called a common exo- 

 genous stem, passing by many anomalous appearances and marked 

 characteristics, interesting chiefly to scientific observers, we would 

 proceed to notice more practically some partieular.s in rclatiuu to the 

 stem and its appendages, leaving entirely the circulatiuii to be con- 

 sidered in a separate article. 



BUDS, BRANCHES, ETC. 



From the buds formed along the ascending axis branches are 

 developed, thus forming a head or crown to the tree ; these branches 

 in organic structure and physiological construction, are the same as 

 those of the stem, they originate in a bud, andform a cone that con- 

 sists of pith, wood and bark, or rather they form a double cone, not 

 as was recently stated by Prof Ward in our Horticultural Society, 

 by growing down into the trunk of the parent stem, but the apex 

 of the inserted cone starts from a bud upon that zone of the tree 

 upon which said bud originates, and as layer after layer intervenes, 

 each successively falling short of the preceding, on account of the 

 growth of the branch, a cone is formed, the circumference of the 

 branch at its junction with the tree being its base. This insertion, 

 thus effected entirely by the successive outer growth, gives the 

 branch the appearance of burying itself like a root in the stem. 

 This conical apex is never carried any nearer the center of the tree 

 than at the period of its first formation, and the inserted portion is 

 elongated only in consequence of the accumulation of the new lay- 

 ers, by which the diameter of the trunk is increased. In its width 

 it increases like the external portion, by the addition of new layers 

 pervading the alburnum of the trunk, to which it is intimately unit- 

 ed by the intermixture of their respective fibers forming a firm and 

 compact knot. Hence, although the trunk is to the branches, what 

 the soil is to the plant, we can not regard this inserted cone in the 

 light of a root, because the trunk, branches and branchlets, to the 

 last twig, receive unitedly their nourishment from the roots, rootlets, 

 and spongioles, belonging to the inferior or descending axis. Let 

 the roots be destroyed or mutilated, and the entire tree perishes or 

 droops. 



Here we emphatically enter our protest to a theory held forth by 

 physiologists, and recently advocated by Prof. Ward, before our 

 Society, that a bud contains an embryon, or perfect plant, as much 

 BO as that contained in the seed, and that a tree formed, from a bud, 



