396 CONSERVATIVE ORGANS. [LECT. VIII. 



whose surface they appear*. The individuality of 

 buds must have been suspected as early as the 

 discovery of the art of budding ^ ; and it is fully 

 proved by the dissection of plants, as we have 

 seen in the demonstrations before us. The vital 

 energy, however, which commences the process 

 of organization in the bud, is not necessarily con- 

 fined to the germ, nor distinct from that which 

 maintains the growth of the entire plant ; but it is 

 so connected with organization, that when this 

 has proceeded a certain length, the bud may be 

 removed from the parent and attached to another, 

 where it will become a branch the same as if it 

 had not been removed ; or, with proper care, it 

 may be made to grow in the earth, and become 

 an entire plant, with all the properties and phy- 

 siognomical characters of the parent. 

 i 



* Malpighi taught that the gems are formed in the pith, 

 which he regarded as a viscus intended for this purpose and the 

 elaboration of the sap. Thummig, a German author who wrote 

 in the 18th century, imagined that the medulla contains the 

 rudiments of the gems : Darwin suspected that the embryons 

 of the buds are secreted from the " vegetable blood " at the 

 footstalk of each leaf; while Mr. Knight supposed that they 

 are generated by the alburnous vessels from the descending 

 proper juice. 



f Budding is that operation in gardening, by which a bud 

 taken from one tree is transferred to another, with which it 

 unites and becomes a branch. It is founded on the fact, that 

 the bud, which is a branch in embryo, is a distinct individual. 



