Ill] SIZES AND SHAPES OF BUDS 25 



The Ivy, for instance, has very few leaves in its bud, 

 whereas in the Lettuce, &c. described as a type there may 

 be over a hundred, while in some Pines there are between 

 three hundred and four hundred. In the former of these 

 instances the bud-leaves, moreover, are almost or entirely 

 like those elsewhere on the shoot ; but in such cases as 

 the Pines and Firs, Walnut, Willow, Beech, Horse-chestnut 

 and most trees the outer bud-scales are very unlike the 

 young leaves inside the bud, or the older ones elsewhere, 

 and may be very different in many ways. It is owing to 

 these differences in the constitution, colour, size, position, 

 &c. of buds that forest-botanists are enabled to compile 

 diagnostic tables of the winter buds of trees and shrubs, very 

 useful for determining species in the absence of the leaves. 



Confining our attention now chiefly to the trees and 

 shrubs with which this book is concerned : 



As regards size, the large buds of ^Esculus, Fraxinus, 

 Magnolia, Ficus, and Acer platanoides may be contrasted 

 with the small ones of Cydonia, Ulmus, and Acer cam- 

 pestre ; those of the Oak, Beech, and Prunus Avium stand 

 about midway as regards size. 



In shape most buds are more or less ovoid, but many 

 modifications of the fundamental form are observable : for 

 instance the long pointed buds of the Beech may be con- 

 trasted with the stumpy pyramidal ones of the Ash ; or 

 the typically ovoid buds of the Oak, with the flattened 

 appressed buds of Willows, &c. As already stated, the 

 usual position of the lateral buds is in the axils of the 

 leaves : but in Robinia pseudacacia and in Platanus the 

 lateral buds are apparently buried in the tissues of the 

 base of the leaf-stalk, owing to the insertion of the latter 

 enveloping the young bud as it forms. Rhus typhina, 

 Philadelphus, Cladrastis and Gleditschia give other 

 examples of these immersed or sub-petiolar buds. 



