passing through the Wood. 7 
or saw into broader planks, they would be preferred to Citron.” 
I have some very beautiful specimens of the Ash that takes a 
perfect polish ; it had the exact resemblance of a large crab, or 
rather spider, which was not only displayed in the root, but 
showed itself in one of the branches of a smaller size. 1 had 
also one of Beech that was in regular stripes of green, brown, or 
pale yellow, constantly flowing from the iron and copper which 
must have been nearly under the tap root, and which plainly 
proyes in what an exact line the sap flows: although this is not 
the general opinion, it certainly evinces that there is no aperture 
to let the sap pass from one layer of wood to the other; but 
that each is completely inclosed within its own cylinder. If it was 
not so, indeed, how could poison flow in one cylinder, and a per- 
fectly insipid liquid in the next, as in the Laudanum plant? ora 
strong caustic in one layer, as in the Ranunculus, and a totally 
innocent juice in the adjoining layer? I could name a hundred 
plants in which the same circumstances occur. ‘* The knots and 
interior parts of the timber of the trees which produce at this 
season the bruscum,”’ says Cicero, ‘* most resemble the female 
Cypress ;” except, he might have added, that the buds cross the 
wood as well as run up it perpendicularly, which is not the case 
in the abovementioned tree. The bruseum is of a blackish 
wood with larger buds. ‘‘I havea piece,” says Cicero, *‘ from 
which the molluscum came, which is most perfect,” so that he 
called any trees thus that were so marked. The famous Tigrine 
and Pantherine curiosities, are tables spotted or made of the 
roots of trees while the buds were passing up; but the curious 
circumstance of numbers hunting for some pieces, and finding 
them quite plain though taken from the same sort of tree in 
which another who knew the secret had at an earlier season suc- 
ceeded, formed a sort of marvellous discovery that caused the 
price to be kept up (I suppose) im Rome. I should never 
have found out the time myself, but from so often cutting the 
buds on the outward bark, or rind, to discover the season at 
which the nucleus of the bud entered under the scales in the 
bark. When the nucleus could not be found, and nevertheless the 
scales appeared on the bark, I was sure it must be the time to 
cut down the tree: and when I cut open the root they were all 
within it ready to run up, and pass under their scales. By de- 
laying therefore one fortnight the tree being cut down, I soon 
found both the molluscum and bruscum of Pliny: and taking 
a fresh tree of the same kind a month after, and cutting open 
the buds, the nucleus was within them, and a very few remained 
scattered in the root and up the bark; they had therefore re- 
_ paired to the scales at the exterior. I found in the root of the 
Lime tree, which affects a very rich loam, a most beautifully nT 
range 
