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389. Succession Buds in the axilla of a single leaf. In making a 

 reference to a late No. of 'The Phytologist,' my eye rested acciden- 

 tally upon Mr. W. Wilson's note on the axillary buds of the common 

 locust-tree (Phytol. 613). There is no express statement in that note 

 whether it was the plurality or the concealment of the buds that was 

 deemed deserving of particular record ; but the language and note of 

 admiration (" when lo ! instead of a solitaiy bud, no less than three 

 were contained in the hollow base of each petiole ") would seem to 

 imply the former. Several garden plants produce a succession of 

 buds from the axilla of the same leaf. Some of the Fuchsias, for ex- 

 ample, first produce a flower-bud from the axilla, and afterwards a 

 leaf-bud developes into a shoot immediately above the peduncle of a 

 flower; and above the base of this young shoot, in turn, the rudiment 

 of another branch or leaf-bud may be observed. So, also, two buds 

 are produced for successive development into branches, at the axilla 

 of a single leaf of Lophospermum erubescens. In the vine, two buds 

 are produced, side by side, in the axilla of a leaf ; one of them being 

 commonly, though not invariably, developed into a shoot the first year. 

 As in the case of the locust-tree, the vine also rapidly produces a se- 

 cond shoot from the same part of the stem, after its first shoots have 

 been killed by spring frosts ; but perhaps this occurs only at those 

 places where both the buds have remained dormant until the second 

 year.— /(Z.; October 17, 1843. 



390. Leaf -buds 'produced from Roots. While on the subject of 

 buds, I may add a note on a statement made in Dr. Lindley's ' Intro- 

 duction to Botany,' p. 51. It is curious to find, in a work so general- 

 ly accurate, the statement of "roots being essentially characterized by 

 the absence of buds." Yet it is a very common occurrence for shoots 

 or suckers to be produced from the roots of trees, many yards distant 

 from their stems, and connected with the stems only through the roots 

 from which they grow. In the roots of poplars, common horse-radish, 

 and many other trees and herbs, the tendency to produce suckers is 

 so strong, that they may be rapidly multiplied by cutting their roots 

 into short lengths, which produce suckers and become distinct plants. 

 No doubt suckers are frequently nothing but shoots fr'om the base of 

 the stem, which run some distance underground ; but in the cases 

 above mentioned, the sucker grows directly from the true root. Such 

 suckers are buds developed into shoots under ground. I should, 

 however, observe that in another part of the same work, the author in 

 some degree contradicts his first statement, while repeating it ; name- 

 ly, " a root has no leaf-buds, unless indeed, as is sometimes the case, 



