PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



65 



If it be true that the sap of plants flows to the points of 

 consumption, it is still difficult to explain why it should per- 

 sistently tend upward to the top of a prostrate- trunk, or of a 

 standing tree, for months after the bud, for the special nourish-* 

 ment of which it is designed, has been destroyed, and after 

 the process of growth has been entirely suspended. 



It is evident, in conclusion, that there yet remains ample 

 room for investigation concerning the phenomena connected 

 with the development of plants and the circulation of sap. 

 Though we cannot hope to exhaust the subject, or to discover 

 precisely what the force is which we call life, and which 

 imparts to eveiy species and individual of the vegetable world 

 its peculiar form and characteristics, it is none the less impor- 

 tant and interesting to exercise our utmost ingenuity in the 

 effort to discover the times and modes of its operation, and 

 its relations to the other forces of Nature. 



LATIN AND COMMON NAMES OF SPECIES. 



