200 GBOWTII AND MATURATION OF THE WOOD OF PLANTS. 



reasonings upon scientific data. Many other important results 

 arise from a knowledge of the peculiarity of the growth of plants. 

 Still speaking of tiie Camellia, if this plant is removed, suppose 

 it to be growing in the open ground and its roots mutilated in 

 the operation (and in moving such plants mutilation takes place 

 to a great extent from the nature of the root), the extent of the 

 current wood will be scanty in proportion to the extent of root to 

 be renewed. This arises fiom the fact that the organic matter 

 stored up in the tissues of tiie plant, and which under favourable 

 circumstances, i. e. had the plant not been removed, would have 

 been employed in the formation of wood, is appropriated by the 

 plant to repair its sustained injuries, consequently it is recom- 

 mended to remove such plants when their growth is completed. 

 But the advice to repot Camellias, and in which operation no 

 mutilation will occur at such a period, will be productive of no 

 advantage, because repotting before growth takes place, if all 

 subsequent treatment is as it should be, will not be productive of 

 an extended growth. 



Deductions from these phenomena, of practical application to 

 the gardener, are numerous ; this is how ever not the place to 

 apply them. I shall now offer some general observations in con- 

 nection with that character of growth as manifested to us in the 

 Erica and similar plants. These plants exhibit a mode of elonga- 

 tion and maturation which, altiiough materially differing in 

 individuals of the same genera, yet as a whole evince peculiarities 

 decidedly opposite to those before described. Speaking of indi- 

 vidual peculiarities, I may mention as decided contrasts, Will- 

 morei superba and Aristata major, or Bergiana and Banksiana. 

 Willmorei will produce blooming shoots, 12 or 14 inches in 

 length, Aristata but a tenth of this, and yet the growth of each 

 will be perfect of its kind. It is not, however, of extent that I 

 am writing, but of the manner by which that extent is produced. 

 Strictly speakimr. Heaths, and many other plants of a like cha- 

 racter, are never totally inert as regards growth, but both 

 processes, elongation and maturation, are carried on at the same 

 time. Now it is evident that such a mode of growth is quite 

 distinct from that of a Rhododendron ; yet both are " hard 

 wooded " plants. And it is equally evident that to profit by a 

 knowledge of this peculiarity, a totally distinct line of treatment 

 must be afforded. In the Rhododendron (I merely select that as 

 a type), the wood for the season is made entirely at the expense 

 of shoots previously formed, and the great business of life in 

 such plants is to recruit that exhausted strength, and to prepare 

 for a future drain upon its resources ; and this is only accom- 

 plished subsequently to the elongation of its wood. Kow in the 

 Heath there is a constant elongation, except perhaps when tiie 



