32 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



or the underground brandies of the Canada Thistle and 

 common Wood Sorrel (Oxalis Acetosella) , shown at a and 

 I, figure 11. 



The propagators make extensive use of all these forms 

 of buds, in multiplying the various kinds of plants under 

 cultivation. 



Frtqi^bu^s appear on plants in the same position as 

 other buds of the regular form that is, they are either 

 ter^minaj_oi\4ateral, but principally the latter ; on trees 

 they are often found on short spurs, which remain pro- 

 ductive for many years. These buds contain the embryo 

 organs of the flower, and in many kinds of plants they 

 are formed the season previous to their full development. 

 But the production of visible fruit-buds is by no means 

 a universal characteristic of plants, for in many orders, 

 and especially among cryptogamous plants (Ferns, Sela- 

 ginellas, Mosses, etc.), true flowers or flower-buds are 

 unknown, for the spores, which answer the purpose of 

 seeds in the higher orders, are developed on the stems, 

 leaves or other appendages of the plants, without the 

 appearance of any previously formed organ in the least 

 resembling flower or fruit-buds. Still, some of these 

 plants produce both aerial and subterranean buds as 

 freely and with as great uniformity as the most common 

 of our cultivated fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs. 

 The spores of these cryptogams are also produced with as 

 great regularity and distinctness of form and position on 

 the plant, and are usually as available for the purpose of 

 propagation, as the most perfect and highly developed 

 seeds. 



Adventitious buds have long been a source of discord 

 among vegetable physiologists, and some of the old and 

 erroneous theories are not as yet quite obsolete. It 

 is less than a centu < ry_ago that several learned European 

 botanists^daimed that evejr^Jbud on the stem of a tree 

 was, an embryo plant fixed in position, but sending its 



