FLORAL DLFLOMACY. 59 



borne on very brittle leaf- stalks, which are easily 

 snapped by the wind, and otherwise broken. But 

 when the fragments fall to the ground, each sends 

 forth buds which root themselves and grow into 

 independent plants. Another species of the same 

 genus, BryopJiylluin prolifenivt, habitually breaks 

 its stem near the base, even when it is in flower ; so 

 that it cannot ripen its seeds. To compensate for this, 

 we find young plants budding out of the foot-stalks 

 of the flowers, and growing up into separate plants. 

 The leaves of the common Cuckoo-flower, Cardamine 

 pratensis^ often form adventitious buds when lying, 

 as they usually do, upon wet ground. Although 

 bulbs are formed more particularly to continue the 

 life of the individual plant, year after year, still they 

 have learned in some instances to do more. Thus 

 in Tulips, Crocuses, Daffodils, and many Lilies, they 

 form succulent scales, which succeed in developing 

 new plants. Many other devices could be men- 

 tioned by any intelligent horticulturist, whereby 

 new plants are developed otherwise than through 

 the agency of seeds. The ease with which most 

 plants are propagated by means of shoots, stuck in 

 the ground at the proper time of the year, best illus- 

 trates this secondary method of reproduction. 



But, after we have made full allowances for these 

 interesting bypaths, it still remains that inflorescence 

 is the universal plan by which flowering plants are 

 propagated. Flowers, fruits, and seeds are indis- 



