CAPACITY FOR REPRODUCTION. 293 



varieties arc still more wonderful. Not only have active cells 

 the power of multiplication in the several parts of a vegetable, 

 but every cell seems to be endowed with the capacity of repro- 

 ducing the entire individual. Thus from the fragment of a root, 

 the eye of a tuber, the scale of a bulb, the cutting of a stem, 

 or a bit of leaf we can readily produce, first a tender growing 

 point or bud, and from this a complete and perfect plant with 

 all the peculiarities of the parent, even to the color of the 

 flower and the flavor of the fruit. 



While this capacity to reproduce the entire individual under 

 certain circumstances may be regarded as belonging to every 

 living vegetable cell during its most active condition, provision 

 has been made for the development of peculiar cells, or clusters 

 of cells, abundantly endowed with vitality and variously pro- 

 tected, which are designed to facilitate the growth and propaga- 

 tion of every plant. The most common forms of these are the 

 ordinary leaf buds produced in the axils of all true leaves ; the 

 seeds of flowering plants ; and the buds and spores of various 

 kinds of the cryptogamia. These bodies, therefore, constitute 

 the special means by which Nature distributes plants. Buds 

 are generally designed only to grow upon the parent stock, or in 

 its immediate vicinity, and are usually destroyed by desicca- 

 tion. They have the same structure and chemical composition 

 with ordinary cellular tissue, and, though occasionally used as 

 food by men and animals, can scarcely be considered as subserv- 

 hig any secondary purpose in the economy of wild or unculti- 

 vated life. 



Man, however, has learned to use buds in many ways for the 

 propagation of plants by extension, a,nd, as most of the valuable 

 varieties of flowers and fruits in cultivation can only be repro- 

 duced by this method, buds are objects of peculiar interest to 

 the horticulturist. In multiplying plants by grafting or bud- 

 ding, the object is to transplant perfected buds from the cam- 

 bium layer of one stock to that of another. If this be so done 

 that the sap of the stock flows freely into the transplanted bud, 

 and the bud be prevented from withering by the exclusion of 

 the air, the operation presents little difficulty in tlie case of 

 plants belonging to the same species and possessing a similar 

 structure and habit of growth. Where the species is the same 

 in the bud and the stock, the advantage to be gained is the pro- 



