72 THE OAK 



CHAPTER VI 



TEE SEEDLING AND YOUNG PLANT (continued) 



THE BUDS AND LEAVES 



THE. buds of the oak those in the leaf-axils as well as 

 those at the tips of the young shoots are characteris- 

 tically short and broad ovoid bodies, consisting of nume- 

 rous overlapping brown scales covered with short, silky 

 hairs, especially at the margins (fig. 19). These scales are 

 really the stipules of arrested leaves, as is shown by the 

 proper leaf-blades being developed as well under certain 

 circumstances, such as when nutritive materials are 

 directed to the young buds. The same morphological 

 fact is also shown by the position of the inflorescences 

 and young leaves higher up in the bud, for they spring 

 from between the scales, and not from their axils proper 

 (see fig. 32). It is of the highest importance to understand 

 that a bud is simply the young state of a shoot, and that 

 it consists of the growing-point of the shoot enveloped 

 by closely-folded leaf structures. In the oak the buds 

 are already formed before the end of June, and on 

 looking closely into the axils of the leaves on the 



