THE 
PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE 
AND JOURNAL. 
1. On the Flower-buds of Trees passing through the Wood, as 
noticed by Cicero and Pliny. By Mrs. Acnss IBBETSON, 
To Dr. Tilloch. 
Sir, — Some late dissections of wood have enabled me to no- 
tice the curious manner in which the flower-buds pass layer by 
layer through the wood even to the root, and have shown me that 
each mark is peculiar to the sort of wood to which it belongs. 
Thus, in the Oak, the bud being sessile, or without stalk, and in 
large numbers together; they generally appear grouped in a 
circle, as at Plate I. fig. 1; and it is hardly possible to pass 
through the wood, and then take fibre from fibre, without en- 
countering innumerable buds thus passing up from the root per- 
pendicularly, or crossing the stem at right angles to its former 
direction. As itis in old wood torn down, not cut, the gastric 
juice (which always precedes the bud) is rarely seen, though its 
effects are most visible and remain permanently so; for, if a set of 
buds have to cross a knot, many holes are perceived in the knot 
through which they have passed, and in which the gastric juice has 
formed them a passage; but which do not close again as the 
wood usually does, because of the hardness of the parts around 
the knot. In the Beech, where the buds follow each other in a 
sort of laxus racemi, it presents a very different picture. Here 
the buds being small, they will run up between the layers of the 
wood, and are not so conspicuous as in the Oak ; though when 
the wood is torn up, not cut, the whole number show with pe- 
culiar grace, as forming a sort of stripe of apparent flowers, which 
the figure of the bud produces, thus passing up perpendicularly 
(fig.2.). In the Yew, they are an assemblage which shows buds of 
all ages, many just peeping through the wood, others more ad- 
Vol. 59. No. 285, Jan, 1822. A2 vanced 
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