198 GEOWTH AND MATURATION OF THE WOOD OF PLANTS. 



Anioiig'st the numerous favourites to be found exhibiting that 

 peculiarity of growth, a good tj^pe of which is afforded us in our 

 connnon Scotch fir, may be instanced the Camellia, and it 

 will furnish an excellent subject upon which to illustrate my 

 observations. All those wiio aspire to scientific cultivation 

 and its consequent results defer repotting this plant till after the 

 current growth is completed, and the flower-buds in process of 

 formation. The reason assigned for this mode of treatment is 

 that by limiting the action of the root during the period of growth, 

 flower-buds are more readily formed and the young wood is less 

 luxuriant. Now I deny that the period of repotting the Ca- 

 mellia, or indeed any plant exhibiting a like peculiarity of 

 growth, has any effect wliatever upon the extent of the current 

 growth. You may shift it before its wood-buds are fairly ex- 

 panded, and at the period when you can distinguish its bloom- 

 buds, and no material difference of quantity in its growth will be 

 effected, provided that in other respects the treatment is such as 

 to prevent a double growth. I need not say that Camellias may 

 be induced, and often are so, to make more than one growth ; 

 such is of course under the cultivator's control : but when such 

 does take place, growth is not continuous ; there is a period of 

 rest, even though no cessation of the stimulant to growth is 

 allowed. The peculiarity of the mode of development of the 

 organization of the Camellia is such that a continuous growth is 

 impossible. It increases its stature not by a gradual progression, 

 but by a series of impulses, each impulse being in direct ratio 

 to the quantity of organizable matter stored up by the plant 

 subsequent to and during the growth immediately preceding. 

 The influence of the root upon the elongation of the wood is 

 only indirect, and it does not affect in any direct way the extent 

 of that growth. If an extensive medium for the roots, with an 

 abundance of food, influenced the foliation and inflorescence, how 

 comes it that plants in the open borders of a conservatory ex- 

 hibit such masses of bloom ? The roots of plants are but ex- 

 tensions of that cellular mass from which all parts of a plant 

 take tiieir origin, and root action is simultaneous with the 

 accumidation of that organic matter in the svibstance of the 

 plant, and no deposition of such organic matter takes place in 

 plants exhibiting such peculiarities of growth as those of which I 

 am writing, vmtil subsequently to the cessation of growth. Good 

 illustrations of this are found in the phenomena attendant upon 

 the process of grafting plants of this description. Success in the 

 operation does not involve any amount of skill, but yet it often 

 occurs that many failures arise, and these failures originate from 

 unexplained causes. 



Often those cases on which we have bestowed the greatest care 



