86 Principles of Plant Culture. 



SECTION IX. THE BUDS. 



127. The Buds. Each tip of the stem (66) is in 

 most plants protected with a covering of rudimentary 

 leaves or leaf-scales, and the tip with its leafy or scaly 

 covering constitutes a bud. A bud forming the apex 

 of a shoot is called a terminal bud; one 

 at the junction of a leaf with the stem 

 (axil) is called an axillary or lateral bud 

 (Fig. 37). 



Each bud generally includes one ter- 

 minal and several axillary growing points. 

 Aside from these, which in the stem exist 

 only in the bud, a bud is simply a part of 

 the stem in which the leaves and inter- 

 nodes are in the embryo stage. 

 Buds. I* 1 most perennial plants, the rudimen- 

 !' tary leaves that form near the latter end 

 of the growing season are changed into bud-scales, which 

 serve to protect their growing points from excessive 

 moisture and sudden changes in temperature. Axil- 

 lary buds which have not yet expanded, are clothed 

 with similar scales. Buds inclosed with scales are 

 often called winter buds. To more effectually shut out 

 water, the scales are coated with a waxy or resinous 

 layer in some plants, as the horse-chestnut and balm of 

 Gilead, and to protect them from too sudden changes 

 of temperature, they are lined in other plants, as the 

 apple, with a delicate cottony down.* 



* A vertical section of the onion bulb may be used as a mag- 

 nified illustration of a bud as it appears in winter, and that of 

 a head of cabbage, of a bud unfolding in spring. 



