314 CONSERVATIVE ORGANS. [LECT. VII. 



partly for supporting these additions to the vessels, 

 and partly for the development of the new bud 

 in the axilla of the leaf ; which, notwithstanding 

 the assertion of Dr. Darwin, occurs in the grasses 

 in the same manner as in other plants, although 

 in our climate it is not always evolved *. The 

 saccharine juice, also, secreted in the knot, is more 

 likely to be required as the first nutriment of the 

 embryon bud (in some degree a new being -f-), 

 which may be developed at this point, than to 

 forward the growth and extension of the next 

 joint ; which is already so constituted as to be 

 able to make use of the nutriment with which it 

 is supplied from the soil, through the medium of 

 the roots. 



Such is the structure and the mode of growth 

 of monocotyledonous stems. The positive features 

 which chiefly characterize them in point of struc- 

 ture, are the separate vascular ligneous cords, and 

 intermixed cellular parenchyma; but they are 

 distinguished more strikingly by negative qualities ; 

 as, for example, those of having no proper bark, on 



* In tropical climates almost all the grasses give off branches 

 from buds formed in the axilla of the leaves ; and even in this 

 climate this occurs in Nodose Canary Grass, Phalaris Nodosa, 

 and several other perennial grasses. 



f I have said, " in some degree," because, even allowing 

 the bud to be lateral progeny, yet it is, strictly speaking, an 

 extension only of the parent, and not a new being, in the 

 sense in which this term is properly applied to seminal progeny. 



