On the Buds and Ramlficalmis of Pla?Us. 231 



class. We shall add, thai a series of experiments made with 

 an apparatus of larger dimensions, and executed with more 

 care than that employed by the commissioners, might fur- 

 nish results useful to artillery. 



XXXV. On file Buds and Ramifications of Plants', ilie 

 Birth of these Organs, and tlie organic Relation between 

 the Trunk and the Branches: in a Letter from G. L. 

 KoELEH, M. D. Professor of Botany and the Materia 

 Medico in the Provisional School of Medicine at MentZy 

 to M. Vextkxat, Member of the French National In- 

 stitute*. 



N. 



MY DEAR FRIEND, 



Iature seems to have thrown an impenetrable vel} over 

 tlie development of vegetable parts. In vain have botanists 

 made cftorts to surprise her ; in vain do they watch her j 

 she eludes their efforts, and laughs at their indefatigable 

 patience. If it has been impossible, however,. to accom- 

 plish by observations this end, which was the object of so 

 much care and labour, their researches have still conducted 

 them to a multitude of other valuable discoveries, which 

 have assisted us in the study of the structure arjd interior 

 (Economy of plants, and have shown to us the causes of 

 several phaenomena before considered as inexplicable. 



The opinions of those who have endeavoured to discover 

 in what manner nature develops one vegetable organ from 

 another mav be ranged into two classes. 



Some have imagined that it is the pith, which itiakes its 

 way through even the hardest wood to produce the ramifi- 

 cations of plants, and that it lengthens itself still to form 

 the most essential parts of the vegetable body. 



Others, and those the most recent, rejecting this opinion, 

 have ascribed to the bark and cortical strata what their pre- 

 decessors gave as the product of the pith. They have 

 thought also that the increase in length and thickness de- 

 pends on the same organs. 



Placed between these two opinions, and though each of 

 them was supported by great names, yet being unwilling 

 jurare in verba rnagistri, I resolved to examine both with- 

 out prejudice, and to give an opinion supported by my 

 own observations. I did so; and discovered that Linnaeus 

 and Hales, who had maintained the former opinion, were 



• Yxotn the Journal dc Physique, Floreal, an 1.'!. 



P 4 not 



