AND SUBORDINATION. 85 



It will be seen that the difference of growth amongst the other 

 branches in like manner bears a determinate relative connection 

 with their several positions on the m#in axis of the branch. 



It is very seldom, therefore, that all the axillary buds of an 

 axis are developed. Most frequently the majority of them are 

 suppressed, and this, too, according to a fixed and regular law. 

 In most cases, neither in the axilla of the covering leaves, nor 

 in that of the under leaves, vitally active buds are produced, 

 but only in the leaf angles of the upper and more powerfully 

 developed part of the year's shoot. Yet this rule is not without 

 exceptions. In the Judas tree, (Cercis C-tnadensis,) the maxi- 

 mum of productive power is certainly in the under part of the 

 shoot ; the leaf axilla have duplicate buds in the lower part of 

 the shoot, whilst toward its top the axilla of the leaves are 

 sterile. 



Sometimes the buds which have thus been rendered rudi- 

 mentary, retain a sufficient amount of vital activity to carry 

 them forward through the annually deposited layers of wood 

 and bark, so that they continue to maintain their position, year 

 after year, on the outside of the bark, where they remain ready 

 for action, in case the growth of the other buds is checked by 

 untimely frosts or other causes. The disintegration of the bark, 

 which is perpetually going on in old stems, undoubtedly helps 

 to keep them on the surface. But in the majority of instances, 

 the bud either dies, and is detached from the shoot the first 

 year, or it retains its life, but continues totally inactive. In 

 the latter case, it necessarily sinks below the surface of the 

 stem, and becomes buried beneath the succeeding annual 

 deposits of bark and wood. Here it may remain for years, in 

 a state of passive vitality, entombed in the stem of the tree, 

 like a seed which is buried in the ground. The trunks and 

 branches of trees always contain an immense number of these 

 buried buds. The beech branch figured on page 31 of this 

 work, may be again referred to ; for it furnishes an excellent 

 illustration of this truth. We have proved it to have been 

 constructed by the labors of one hundred and fifty -five leaves, 

 each of which formed, more or less perfectly, a bud in its 

 axilla, before it fell from the stem; yet only twenty-seven of 



