236 On the Buds and Ramifications of Plants, 



cording to its nature. In several plants it is a real putiolcy 

 as in the seringa, &c. ; in others it is, as it were, an inter- 

 mediate organ between the branches and the petioles, because 

 it is not hollowed out in grooves at its upper surface, but 

 entirely round ; because its substance is more ligneous than 

 herbaceous, though it falls annually ; and because it forms 

 internally a canal containing real pith, and closed towards 

 the base of the petiole, so that the pith does not commu- 

 nicate with that of the part to which this supporter is at- 

 tached. Similar supporters are found in the rhus coriaria, 

 the acer negundo, the rohinia, &cc. 



About three years ago I made this observation on the 

 shumac ; and I have reason to believe that no one ever 

 made it before me, since I in vain consulted on this subject 

 all mv books on botany. I proposed to make a series of 

 researches on this subject; and, mdeed, they convinced me 

 that nature covers in this manner the buds of several lig- 

 neous dicotyledons considered hitherto as not bearing any. 

 It was my intention not to publish my observations until I 

 had sufficiently repeated them, which could not be done 

 till I had examined a much greater number of vegetables. 

 But a little while ago I found in the Memoires pour servir a, 

 r Anatomic et a. la Physiologie Vcgcloles, par M. Medicus*, 

 that this celebrated botanist had made the same observation 

 on plane-trees. I immediately had recourse to other works, 

 such as your excellent Tableau du Regne Vegetal; and, 

 though I found nothing in the first volume under the arti- 

 cles relating to that subject, I found in the third f that this 

 peculiarity of the plane-tree had not escaped you. I then 

 consulted the Traitc des Arbres et Arbnstes, by Duhamel, 

 where, under the article Platanus, this great observer makes 

 mention of the same phasnomenon, without pointing out> 

 however, whether it was known before ; but as it has been 

 known since that time, how comes it that no botanist, in 

 treating specially of buds, has rectified his definition ac- 

 cording to this observation ? 



Shumac furnished me also with an opportunity of ob- 

 serv'ing several phaenomena in regard to the birth and deve- 

 lopment of buds. I shall give you an account of them as 

 briefly as possible. 



Almost all botanists have adopted the opinion, that the 

 leaves in the eyes of which the buds shoot forth approach, 

 towards the end of their life, to the ligneous state by the 



• Beytrape zur Pflanxen anatomie und Pfianien physiologif, haft i. p. 24. 

 t Page 572. 



influence 



