572 TKANSACTIOXS AND I'ltOCEEDIjSGS OF THE [Sess. lvii. 



These lateral blanches are, in many species, employed 

 not only to reproduce the aerial part of the plant, with 

 its leaves and flowers ; but, having their origin below the 

 soil, they may, instead ot" becoming aerial, remain sub- 

 terranean, and running through tlie ground to greater or 

 less distances from the parent, may give ]'ise to new 

 plants, wliich will ultimately become free by their death, 

 and decay. 



It is in this way, rather than by seeding, that the large 

 circular patches of such sand-loving plants as Astragalus 

 hypoglottii, Ononis nrvcnsis, Lotus cornaidatus, and Lathyrus 

 tuberosus, which may be seen on almost any of our links 

 during summer, are formed. The parent plant, generally 

 situated near the centre of the group, is provided with a long 

 tap-root often penetrating several leet into the soft sandy 

 soil, and is generally connected till very late in life by 

 means of the stout cord-like subterranean branches with 

 the daughter-plants of tlie next generation, each of which 

 has a similar but shorter tap-root, in this case of course 

 adventitious, and is connected by a similar series of cords 

 with a smaller circle of still younger plants, each with a 

 small slender tap-root of its own, formed apparently from 

 one of the nodes of the undei'ground branch on which it 

 is borne. 



BitAXcniNG. — The branching of the aerial part of the 

 primary stem, as well as that of the aerial parts of the 

 branches just described, depends in many cases to a 

 considerable extent on the formation of, so called, accessory, 

 or as Wydler (viii.) prefers to name them, serial buds 

 which arise singly or in vertical median rows, the number 

 in each being dependent on the strength of the plant. 

 These rows are intercalated between the normal branch 

 and the leaf in the axil of whicli it arises, the members 

 of each row appear successively in descending series, so 

 that the highest below the normal branch is the first to 

 show itself and is always the strongest. TIk; members of 

 a row, though appearing at hrst vertically above one another, 

 soon show a i^igzag arrangement, wliich is initiated by the 

 highest of the series deviating either to riglit or to left 

 of the vertical line, whihi tlic next lower bud assumes a 

 position alternating with it, the tliird being under the 



