18 THE PHENOMENON OF 



expansion and firmer establishment, does it retreat simul- 

 taneously into itself in the formation of buds and seed, to 

 prepare the germs of new life. Thus the greater part of 

 that which unfolds itself in Spring, after winter has passed 

 over it, was already formed in the preceding summer and 

 autumn. Even now in August we find in the terminal 

 and lateral buds of the oak, within numerous, five-ranked 

 bud-scales, the rudiments of the leaves destined for 

 next year ; nay, in the mostly paired terminal buds of 

 the lilac (Syringa), we find not only these, but the rich 

 thyrse of blossom for the future year, with hundreds of 

 closely crowded flowers, which at this time indeed appear 

 only as inconspicuous green nodules, scarcely the twelfth 

 part of a line in diameter. In the heart of the tulip 

 bulb, shielded by three- to four-fold succulent leaf-scales 

 (cataphyllous coats, Niederblatt-hulle), exists, in autumn, 

 a little greenish-yellow bud ; this is the tulip stem for the 

 next year, with all the parts which it elevates from the 

 earth nine months later, namely, two or three leaves, 

 between which lies hidden the blossom, scarcely a third 

 of a line high, the petals and stamens appearing as ex- 

 tremely small, uniform papillae, scarcely distinguishable, 

 and not yet closed in as in later shape of the flower-bud, 

 while the pistil is visible in the middle as a little, three- 

 lobed papilla. The spike of the hyacynth is somewhat 

 more advanced, at the same period, in the interior of the 

 many-scaled bulb, for the three outer petals of each flower 

 already begin to close up. In Opltioglossum, a strange 

 little plant of the alliance of the Ferns, which unfolds 

 annually only one leaf and one spike, we find in May, in the 

 bud still hidden under ground, enclosed in a cellular cover- 

 ing, (not formed of cataphyllary leaves or bud-scales, but 

 thallus-like,) not only the leaf and spike for the next 

 year, but also the rudiment of the leaf for the year after that. 

 A further penetration into hidden workshops of Reju- 

 venescence in plants, requires, first of all, a more minute 

 investigation of the bud. The plant is bud, so long as 

 its existing rudiments are kept, in relation to completion, 



