DECOMPOSITE ORGANS. CHAP. I* 



the interior layers, of a fine epidermis enveloping 

 a succulent pulp from which they acquire a con- 

 siderable thickness particularly towards the base, 

 and form a sort of fleshy mass, being united by a 

 viscid juice that exudes from their surface, as in the 

 bulb of the Onion; or by transverse and vertical parti- 

 tions, as in the bulb of the Snow-drop. The incipient 

 plant is lodged in the centre of the nucleus, and is 

 discoverable by dissection long before the period of 

 its natural evolution, as in the case of the solid bulb. 

 This is particularly well exemplified in the bulb of the 

 Tulip, which if it is taken even in the beginning of 

 January and cut up carefully into two halves in a 

 line passing through its longitudinal axis, the petals, 

 stamens, and pistil, and incipient stem, may be all 

 distinctly perceived, small and delicate in their ap- 

 pearance, but complete in all their parts. 



Or scaly. If the scaly bulb is dissected, it will be found to 

 consist externally of the base of the sheathing part 

 of the root-leaves of the former year, transformed 

 into the shape of scales by the decay of their upper 

 portion, and distributed like the scales of the bud ; 

 and internally of the rudiments of the root-leaves 

 of the following year, with the incipent stem and 

 stem-leaves occupying the centre. 



whether But in the dissection of radical bulbs, of what- 

 ever species, there is generally to be discovered 

 several small and incipient bulbs issuing from the 

 main bulb, and situated for the most part upon the 

 base ;- if in the solid bulb, between the envelope 



