200 LONGEVITY OF WOOD. [BOOK it. 



Butrochet mentions some cases of extraordinary longevity 

 in the stock of Pinus Picea, after the trunk had been felled, 

 and which he supposes fatal to the theory of wood being 

 formed by the descent of organised matter. He says that, in 

 the year 1836, a stock of Pinus Picea, felled in 1821, was 

 still alive, and had formed 14 thin new layers of wood, that 

 is, one layer each year; and another, felled in 1743, was still 

 in full vegetation, having formed 92 thin layers of wood, or 

 one each year. But, it is now ascertained that these roots 

 are connected with living stems in consequence of having 

 become grafted under ground to the roots of the latter. 



The observations of Mirbel on the origin of the woody 

 bundles of Palm trees, from which it appears that the bundles 

 first appear isolated in the cellular matter of the buds, and 

 then direct themselves upwards into the leaves and down- 

 wards into the trunk, are certainly opposed to the possibility 

 of regarding wood as the roots of leaves. And the difficulty 

 of admitting the theory is much increased by the existence in 

 bark of the embryo buds, already described, vol. 1. p. 177 ; and 

 by M. Decaisne's statement, that in the Beet-root, when new 

 vascular tissue is produced, it, in the beginning, is distinct 

 from the previously formed vascular tissue. 



The singular examples of carved figures being found in the 

 interior of trees also militate somewhat against the theory of 

 wood being a form of roots, and are better explicable upon 

 the supposition of a gradual superficial deposit. A very 

 curious example of this is to be found in the Gardeners 9 

 Chronicle for 1841, p, 828 ; others have been occasionally met 

 with ; and Link has figured one in his Icones Selecta, part 

 2. t. 2. fig. 7, which he speaks of thus : I found such letters 

 in a Lime tree near Berlin, on an estate belonging to the 

 deceased minister, Count von Lottum ; the letters on the one 

 side of the split piece were hollow, on the other elevated, and 

 the cavity had evidently been filled up again with a woody 

 substance. This filling-up substance, on making a transverse 

 incision, exhibited rather irregular layers, with a moderate 

 magnifying power. And on being magnified by 315 diame- 

 ters, it evidently consisted of strata of larger and smaller 

 cells, partly filled up, partly empty, with interstices. The 



