AN INNER LAW OF ITS ORGANISM. 189 



or, if the leaves should have a sufficiency of vital power to 

 form internodes, and thus become separated from each 

 other, yet the buds produced by them remain inactive, 

 and the shoots thus formed never become mother-shoots, 

 but their term of life speedily draws to its close. Every 

 year may be perceived, especially on the under part of the 

 stem and branches of trees, these primary branches thus 

 gradually expiring, or absolutely dead. They are quite as 

 easily detached from the stem as an ordinary leaf, and are 

 generally removed by the wind. 



And the fate which thus overtakes the individual parts 

 of the tree, or the tree in the lower stages of its develop- 

 ment, will finally overtake the tree itself, when fully deve- 

 loped ; for the same law which gives form to the tree and 

 its several parts, the law of the decrease of growth in the 

 upper parts of the main stem or axis, as also in the suc- 

 cessive generations of branches, is that which must finally 

 set bounds to the existence of the tree itself. 



An animal may continue to live after it ceases to grow, 

 but with the tree it is otherwise ; for the tree continues to 

 grow as long as it lives, and when it ceases to grow in any 

 of its parts, the life of those parts must inevitably and 

 necessarily terminate. This gradually expiring growth at 

 its extremities is, therefore, significant of the fact that the 

 tree has passed its prime, and that its life is gradually 

 drawing to its close. The death of the tree, therefore, 

 takes place from within to without, or from its centre to 

 its circumference, and from above to below; or it dies 

 downwardly, from the extremities of its branches to its 

 roots. 



Schleiden, Gray, De Candolle, and others, have indeed ad- 

 vanced the doctrine that the tree can only perish through 

 storms or other mechanical injuries, and that there is nothing 

 in its organization to intimate that it may not continue to 

 vegetate for an indefinite period of time. But, although 

 we freely admit that it is difficult to point out clearly the 

 several stages of vegetative inactivity, till the life and 

 growth of the whole tree forever ceases, and that in most 



