22 PHENOMENA OF PLANT LITE. 



comparatively recent observation. The ancients had 

 a name for the buds of trees ; but it was our illustri- 

 ous countryman, John Kay, a minister of the gospel 

 in the time of the Commonwealth, who first demon- 

 strated scientifically that the increase of trees takes 

 place by means of such annual sproutings. Some of 

 the German naturalists regard the trunk of a tree as a 

 mere mass of obsolete vegetable matter, and the 

 annual shoots as comparable to young plants that rise 

 out of the earth in spring from seeds. To this view 

 of the matter there are, however, grave objections. 

 Every kind of tree has a fixed lease of life ; it is com- 

 petent to acquire a given stature and a definite profile 

 and physiognomy, and until this has been attained, it 

 can hardly be said that the tree is other than a living 

 unity. Be this as it may, the wonderful structure of 

 the buds, and their prodigious powers of life, are of 

 the most singular and striking interest. Every bud 

 consists of a growing nucleus, a little heart of pith 

 seeking to push forwards ; and overlying it, a number 

 of minute leaves, mere rudiments of proper leaves, 

 which protect the centre from the asperities of the 

 weather, but yield this way and that, correspondingly 

 with the enlargement of the germ in the interior. By 

 degrees true leaves are developed, a slender shoot is 

 protruded, and it may be that in this there is the com- 

 mencement of a large bough. The outer, rudimentary 

 leaves undergo no change ; they retain their places as 



