4 On the Physiology of Botany. 



View Plate I, fig. 2: these are the flower-buds of beginning 

 branches, forcing their way through the wood, and thus dis- 

 played by the bark being taken off. How could these excrescences 

 be formed outwardlv, when botanists make the whole force to 

 act in a contrary direction ? for if they are supposed to run back 

 into the wood (rather a strange method of proceeding forward), 

 Mould they have made an excrescence at the exterior ? Besides, 

 at /; /' there are many young buds that have not yet reached 

 the i)ark ; they cannot have formed in the alburnum, for they 

 have not yet touched it : and if one half of these cup-like forms 

 be cut away at a a, fig. 2, the aperture for the bud will be seen 

 to pierce the whole way to the line of life next the pith. 



But tear down a young tree perpendicularly in the middle, 

 what figure does it present ? fig. 3, a sm.all line which is the pith, 

 the caiial medidlnire or line of life being on each side 5 an, from 

 which line flow many flower-buds well defined, some half way, 

 some the whole way tlirough the wood, and some have formed 

 the bark scales, and entered the buds within them. If well ex- 

 amined it will be found that the bud (soft as it is) never begins 

 to pass through the wood horizontallv till it sends a juice which 

 precedes it, and which evidently appears to make way for it. 

 This liquid I call the gastric juice ; as it often makes holes through 

 the knots of the wood, and at other times prepares the passage, 

 and arranges the wood both above and below, so as to make a 

 covered way for the exi^; of the buds. If,* as botanists assert, 

 the bud is formed at the outside of the wood, how can they 

 he discovered, thus forcing their way from the centre? and, if 

 the power comes from the alburnum, would it not have formed 

 at the exterior, a cavity, rather than a projection ? 



The next specimen I shall offer is cut across the stem hori- 

 zontally. The dissector cannot be wrong ; buds both old and 

 young will present themselves, (see fig. 4.) running from the 

 centre to the circuinference, fi to Z" ; and the difference always 

 observed in a tree between the leaf-bud and flower-bud, is that 

 the first proceeds from the bark, the last from the line of life. 

 This is so evident, that even after the branch has attained some 

 size the mark of the flower-bud still remains (see fig. 3, a a), 

 while the leaf-bud, bl, never passes within the wood. I have 

 now led the flower bud to the centre of the tree, proving by 

 every different specimen (of the exterior and the interior cut ho- 

 rizontally and perpendicular bf) that it must cross the wood. Is 

 it formed there ? Certainly not; for though many buds are seen 

 to pass across the wood, yet a far greater number are observed 

 to run up it from the root. Those therefore must come from 

 some place where they are formed ; and there must be some 

 power which enables them, when arrived opposite where these 



bark 



