76 THE STRUGGLE FOB EXISTENCE. 



(ii) Different degrees of development of contiguous buds. If 

 all the buds produced at any point were of one and the same 

 strength, they would all sprout together, forming a brush of shoots. 

 Hence it is essential that some should be so much more rudiment- 

 ary than the rest that they remain undeveloped when these latter 

 sproiit. Buds at the axils of scale or otherwise abortive leaves are 

 the most rudimentary of all, and species possessing them are al- 

 ways the most prolific in dormant buds. Next come accessory 

 buds, especially if they are situated below the true normal bud. 

 These inferior accessory buds are generally so concealed under the 

 stipules or even the base of the petiole of the leaf at the axil of 

 which they are produced (as in Eugenia Jambolana, Wendlandia 

 e.rerta, &cj, that they are physically hindered from developing save 

 under a strongly exciting cause. C'ollum buds are, by their origin, 

 well protected from the light, and the curling up of the tap and" 

 side roots draws them still further into the soil, especially if this is 

 rich and loose ; but the generally very adverse conditions under 

 which forest seedlings in India grow up, force the developmental 

 energy of the young plant into them, and some of them do become 

 dormant simply because of their concealed position inside the soil. 

 Sometimes, as in teak in the scrub forests of Central India, they 

 acquire so much absolute vigour, that they sprout and form fairly 

 strong shoots round the base of even, the living tree- 



(iii) The shade-avoiding nature of the species. The more 

 light-demanding a species is, the stronger must be the exciting 

 cause for a given bud to sprout, and, therefore, cceteris paribus, the 

 greater the proportion of buds that tend to become or remain dor- 

 mant. 



(iv) Early formation of the secondary bark. The sooner buds 

 are covered over by the formation of the secondary bark and with- 

 drawn from the influence of light, the greater the chance of their 

 continuing dormant and of their surviving injurious weather influ- 

 ences. Besides this, the soft bast, in which the herbaceous portion 

 of the bud lies embedded, helps indirectly, and sometimes even 

 directly, to nourish those buds. 



(v) Deciduousness. In evergreens most o f the protoplasmic 

 matter from the leaves about to fall passes into the younger conti- 

 guousileaves, which, being in full function, would moreover draw it 

 towards themselves with very much greater force than any dor- 

 mant buds that may be equally near. On the other hand, in decid- 

 uous trees and shrubs, a very large proportion of those substan- 

 ces ie necessarily stored up in the woody portion during the 



