Plants. 193 



as of odour, fruit, gum, resin, wax, hon- 

 ey, &c. seem brought about in the same 

 manner as in the glands of animals ; the 

 tasteless moisture of the earth is convert- 

 ed by the hop-plant into a bitter juice ; 

 as by the caterpillar in the nutshell the 

 sweet kernel is converted into a bitter 

 powder. While the power of absorption 

 in the roots and barks o vegetables is 

 excited into action by the fluids applied 

 to their mouths like the lacteals and lym- 

 phatics of animals. 



The individuals of the vegetable world 

 may be considered as inferior or less 

 perfect animals ; a tree is a congeries of 

 many living buds, and in this respect re- 

 sembles the branches of coralline, which 

 are a congeries of a multitude of ani- 

 mals. Each of these buds of a tree has 

 its proper leaves or petals for lungs, pro- 

 duces its viviparous or its oviparous off- 

 spring in buds or seeds ; has its own 

 roots, which extending down the stem of 

 the tree are interwoven with the roots of 

 the other buds, and form the bark, which 

 is the only living part of the stem, is an- 

 nually renewed, and is superinduced up- 

 on the former bark, which then dies, and 



