GROWTH OF MOXOCOTYLEDONES. 45 



tural order of Palms, which being the most lofty, and, 

 in some instances, the most long-lived of plants, have 

 justly acquired the name of trees. Yet, paradoxical 

 as it may seem, they are rather perennial herbaceous 

 plants, having nothing in common with the growth of 

 trees in general. Their nature has been learnedly ex- 

 plained by IM. Desfontaines, a celebrated French bo- 

 tanist, and by M. Mirbel in his Trait e d'Anatomie et de 

 Phxjs'wlogie Vegetales, vol. I. p. 209, and Linneeus has 

 long ago made remarks to the same y)urpose. The 

 Palms are formed of successive circular crowns of 

 leaves, which spring directly from the root. These 

 leaves and their footstalks are furnished with bundles 

 of large sap-vessels and returning vessels, like the leaves 

 of our trees. When one circle of them has performed 

 its office, another is formed within it, which being con- 

 fined below, necessarily rises a little above the former. 

 Thus successive circles grow one above the other, by 

 which the vertical increase of the plant is almost with- 

 out end. Each circle of leaves is independent of its 

 predecessor, and has its own clusters of vessels, so that 

 there can be no aggregation of woody circles ; and yet 

 in some of this tribe the spurious kind of stem, formed 

 in the manner just described, when cut across shows 

 somethini:^ of a circular arrangement of fibres, arisincj 

 from the original disposition of the leaves. The com.- 

 mon orange lily, Lilium hulbiferum, Curt, Mag. t. 36, 

 and white lily, L. candidam, t. 278, which belong to 

 the same natural family called monocotijledones, serve 



