GROWTH AND MATURATION OF THE WOOD OF PLANTS. 201 



flowers are about to expand, and at the period of fitness for 

 fertilizing the embrj^o ; and consequently tliere must be no long 

 period of cessation in the healthy action of the root. This is 

 why Heaths are, under an artificial course of treatment, so diffi- 

 cult of management ; and wliy, when tlieir roots are in any 

 way deranged, the foliage so soon bespealvs ill health ; when also 

 in tliis state growth will not take place, and unless prompt means 

 are taken death must ensue. No plant has less cellular matter 

 in its structure than a Heath. As I have previously observed, 

 perfect organization will have taken place at the base of a shoot 

 but a couple of inches in length, and while its point will be in 

 the first stage of development ; and this circumstance accounts for 

 the feebleness witii which a Heath "breaks" when pruned in the 

 shoots of more than one season's growth. It is deficient in cellular 

 matter, the primary form of all subsequent stages of a shoot. 



In glancing at another peculiarity of growtii, of which, per- 

 haps, a Pelargonium is as familiar an instance as could be selected, 

 we meet with a perfectly distinct mode of development. When 

 we cut back a plant of this character, however severely the 

 operation may be performed, we are confident that new shoots 

 will present themselves, even though no moisture be allowed to 

 the roots ; and this circumstance arises from the great amount of 

 undeveloped organized matter which abounds in tlie whole sub- 

 stance of all plants of a like character. In such instances we kndw 

 that the perfect maturation of the shoots, from the bursting of 

 the young bud to the perfection of the seed, will take place in a 

 few months, and consequently we may be said to create a new 

 plant every season, because we know that in that brief space we 

 can attain our aim. Precisely a like routine of rapid organiza- 

 tion takes place in ammal plants, a more prolonged one in bien- 

 nials, and the same end is only attained in the protracted 

 development of an Aloe or a Palm. In fact, we must be aware that 

 every plant, before it can produce perfect flowers or fruit, must go 

 through a certain series of developments ; that diflferent varieties 

 of plants have different degrees of perfection in that development 

 (taking the more protracted as types) to pass through, before the 

 great end of all organized beings, reproduction (or the organs of 

 such), is perfected.* And we can also infer that the several 



* Mr. Knight was of opinion that accumulated matter of succeeding 

 seasons, not only that of the current growth, influenced the degree of per- 

 fection of a given crop of fruit or flowers. In this we must all concur ; and 

 the acknowledgment of the principle involves much for serious considera- 

 tion, and much that bears directly upon plant culture. In an annual, the 

 present season, or more properly one circle of organic phenomena, is all that 

 is afl'orded to accomplish the great end of life. An Amaryllis, mutilated at 

 the season of vigour, requires three or four such circles of organic develop- 

 ment to enable it to perfect its flowers, and with the best treatment too. 



