On the Physiology of Botany. 7 



ing before the buds, when crossing the wood horizontally. Many 

 examples are given by most botanists of the buds piercing through 

 stone-walls, and the mortar at the corner of the bricks. Is it not 

 astonishing no one should have inquired the cause of this phae- 

 nomenon ? How could so delicate a substance have continued 

 its way thus, being as it is the softest part of the tree ? But it 

 is preceded by a juice which clears the way before it. Did na- 

 ture give this merely to make a few buds run astray ? No, cer- 

 tainly, it had a more important office, — to pass the flower-bud 

 of the tree through the whole thickness of the wood, for I have 

 seen the bud run through a foot and a half on each side of the 

 pith, lifting some of the lines, and sinking other*, till a covered 

 way is made the whole width of the wood, through which the 

 juices pass. This reminds us of the basket makers, who wet their 

 twigs to bend them to the form they wish, and scarcely a knot 

 will be found without some diminutive holes made for the passing 

 of the buds. 



As to herbaceous plants which have single flower-stalks or 

 peduncles, the bud is not only to be seen mounting the root 

 most evidently, but when the bud appears above the root, they 

 directly take in their pollen, and then the flower-stalk rises 

 (while increasing the stem) under the bud till the hour of opening 

 and being fructified arrives, as in the Primula Cyclamen, &c. 

 Those herbaceous plants that have both leaves and flowers on the 

 same stem, such as the Saxifraga crassifolia^ the Garstiana^ 

 Scropkulana ; all when first shooting in the spring have such 

 large buds even under the earth, that if they will cut them open, 

 no person need ask, whether the herbaceous plants flower in the 

 root (see fig. 8, ddd), as each of these buds is a flower-bud with 

 a quantity of flowers in each scale (fig. 8, ddd), with the pollen 

 and pistil complete in each. 



Some botanists have accidentally cut a bulb, and found a flower 

 within : this has been the wonder ever since. Is it not extraor- 

 dinary that no one should have followed this lead, and inquired 

 whether other plants were not formed in the same manner? All 

 bulbs take in their pollen in the root, which they could not do 

 if both pollen and pistil were not formed there ; and they are 

 fructified the moment they leave it. Some botanists have said 

 that the bulb is not a root. I wonder then what is the true de- 

 finition of one ; for I am sure the strings are radicals, and they 

 always grow under or at the bottom of the root. Besides, the 

 lower part of the bulb is that on which all the ingredients of the 

 plant are made, another reason why it is undoubtedly the labo- 

 ratory of the plant. 



Then the water plants, the Nymplura, the Plantago,&:c.&ic. 

 so evidently form their bud ia the root, that vvhen they leave it, 



there 



