32 SUPPRESSION OF BUDS [CH. 



artistic abandon of older plants by the operation of the 

 various influences referred to and the co-operation of 

 others yet to be mentioned. 



Apart from the growth of some branches into shoots 

 of unlimited growth, while others form dwarf-shoots, the 

 conversion of others into flowering branches, the arresta- 

 tion of terminal buds, and so on, we find that many buds 

 are starved at the outset, and never reach the dignity 

 of branches under normal circumstances — e.g. the buds 

 in the axils of the cotyledons of the Broad Bean, 

 which only grow to branches if the primary shoot is 

 removed. In many cases these suppressed buds remain 

 alive (dormant) and later on develope into branches, out 

 of their turn as it were (deferred branches). On the other 

 hand, buds are not as a rule formed in the axils of bud- 

 scales, or if formed do not develope into branches, and 

 the same is true of the lower leaf-axils of most branches, 

 the axils of the floral leaves (sepals, petals, &c.), and on 

 most trees there are numerous buds suppressed in places 

 where we should have expected to find them. The 

 development of buds and therefore branches only in the 

 axils of a few of the numerous leaves on a parent axis 

 is carried out almost symmetrically in its turn in some 

 cases — e.g. the Spruce, Silver Fir, and especially in Abies 

 Pinsajw, but it occurs in Oaks, Pyrus, and many other 

 trees, and is equally common in shrubs and herbaceous 

 plants. 



Nor is this all. Many trees develope branches in the 

 places we should expect to find them, only to cast them 

 ofl" later by a process of abscission very similar to that by 

 which the leaves are shed every autumn. This occurs to 

 a striking extent in Taxodiam, but it is also universal, or 

 nearly so, in Oaks, Poplars, Willows, and other of our 

 common trees. 



