SECRETARY'S REPORT. 139 



How shall the tree stripped of its leaves supply itself with food 

 while pushing out the myriad of new leaves from its buds ? 

 Like the instinct-guided bee, it has laid up provisions for this 

 time of need. When it has nearly finished its growth for one 

 year, it makes provision for the year that is to come. In the 

 axil of the lea( the bud is set, which another spring is to imfold 

 in leaves, and elongate into the branch. While this bud is 

 fashioned and set in its place, food is also stored up in the tis- 

 sues in "form of starch and sugar and other organic materials, 

 for the support of that bud while expanding its leaves. The 

 same principle is seen in a more striking manner in some of our 

 cultivated plants. The potato is only a thickened underground 

 stem. Its eyes correspond to the buds upon the common 

 branch, and the store of starch, so nutritious for food, was 

 placed there to develop those eyes into stems at the appointed 

 time. When the potato sprouts in spring, without contact with 

 the earth, the branches feed upon this store of food, gathered 

 for its use. The beet and parsnip, and other kindred plants, 

 produce an abundance of flowers and fruit, but never till the 

 second year. The first year the whole energy of the plant is 

 spent in providing a large succulent root stored with sugar and 

 other organized materials. The second year the whole energy 

 of the plant seems to be spent in producing its abundance of 

 fruit, and now it draws upon the collected stores of the first year, 

 and thus produces results which would be impossible were it 

 compelled to elaborate its food when suddenly needed by its 

 multitudes of flowers and seeds. Other plants are many years, 

 instead of one, in making this provision. The century plant, 

 and others allied to it, in their thick leaves store up vast maga- 

 zines of materials, that are used with astonishing rapidity, when 

 the time comes for them to send up their stems and produce 

 their fruit. The same process may be observed in many of our 

 perennial herbacious plants, that do much of this curious work 

 beneath the soil. The broad-leaved orchis and the Soloman's seal 

 are examples. They provide a large and vigorous bud, as parent 

 of the next year's plant, and while a portion of the old root 

 decays, the remaining portion is packed with food to send up 

 from that bud now hidden in the soil a vigorous plant in early 

 spring. 



