MIXED CROP OP UNIFORM AGE. 75 



fall of the thermometer at sundown; and so on. Hence the very 

 much greater vigour and number and longer life of dormant buds 

 in Indian trees and shrubs. Teak, Terminalia tomentosa, tamarisk, 

 and numerous other species coppice vigorously even when they are 

 more than a hundred years old. 



(iv) Richness and suitability of the soil for the species in ques- 

 tion. It is evident that the more suitable the soil is, the larger will 

 be the amount of food a given extent of leaf-surface can assimilate, 

 and, therefore, the larger the quantity of nourishment available for 

 the use of the dormant buds. 



We have now to consider the difference in the number and vigour 

 of the dormant buds in individuals belonging to different species. 

 This will depend on 



(i) The number of buds (normal, accessory or belonging to 

 scale-leaves) produced at or near the axil of each leaf, and the 

 number of the collum buds. The scale-leaf buds, being generally 

 extremely rudimentary, can develop only on the condition of the ex- 

 cessive mutilation or weakening of the original shoots at the base of 

 which they lie: e.g. the formation of a brush of shoots in young sal, 

 when the leader has been killed by fire or frost, or by chilly nights 

 following a hot steamy forcing day; &c. As covered buds may each 

 comprise up to 25 or even more scale-leaves, and each such leaf 

 has at least one bud in its axil, it is easy to realise the immense ad- 

 vantage enjoyed by species possessing covered buds. But as al- 

 ready mentioned on page 72, the outer leaves of naked buds and 

 their internodes may attain so little development when the buds 

 finally sprout, that a naked bud may be just as good as a covered 

 bud in respect of the number of rudimentary buds at or near the 

 base of the shoot developed from it. 



As regards accessory buds, it may be said that a great many, if 

 not the majority, of broad-leaved trees and shrubs in India pro- 

 duce them, although in most cases they are so rudimentary, that 

 they are difficult to detect and develop only under the stimulus of 

 some strongly exciting cause. But it is such rudimentary buds 

 that are the most likely of all to remain dormant. 



Lastly, although, as has been said under Definition 66, most of 

 our broad-leaved trees and shrubs below the higher regions of the 

 Himalayas produce collum buds, yet some species form more nume- 

 rous and vigorous ones than others. Besides enabling the young 

 seedling to renew itself as often it dies down, these buds form all or 

 most of the shoots, which at a later age the plant can throw up if 

 cut back flush with, or even inside, the ground. 



