190 INDEPENDENT LIFE OF LEAF-BUDS. 



will be seen to be important, when the structure of the flower is 

 described ; as it will then be shown, that its several parts are 

 arranged upon the same principle with leaves! 



305. It is by the development of leaf- buds into branches 

 bearing leaves, and capable of producing flowers and fruit, that 

 the tree or plant is increased in size. The leaf-bud has also the 

 power of developing roots, if removed from the parent, and may 

 thus form a completely independent structure. It is by sepa- 

 rating the buds, and by placing these in circumstances favour- 

 able to their growth, that any particular variety of plant may be 

 propagated more certainly than by seeds. Even whilst still re- 

 maining attached to each other, the leaf-buds not unfrequently 

 become really independent of each other and of the parent ; 

 those, for instance, which are formed at the end of the runner or 

 creeping stem of the Strawberry, send down roots into the soil, 

 and thus absorb their nourishment directly from it. As every 

 bud is capable of maintaining an independent existence, it may 

 be regarded as in some degree a distinct individual ; and thus a 

 tree would not be one being, but a collection of many. This is 

 in part true ; still it must be remembered that, while all re- 

 maining upon one stem, the buds are almost entirely dependent 

 upon it for nourishment, and are all liable to be influenced in the 

 same manner, by any circumstances whi h affect it. 



306. Still it is quite possible for some buds to live while 

 others die. Thus if arsenic be introduced into any portion of 

 the sapwood, it will give such a poisonous character to the fluid, 

 that all the buds and branches in the line above it will be killed, 

 the others remaining unaffected. It has even occurred, that a 

 single bud at the summit of a stem has preserved its life, whilst 

 the vitality of all the others, and of the stem, has been in some 

 manner destroyed ; and that from this bud have been sent down 

 bundles of root-fibres, between the bark and wood of the dead 

 stem, which, when they have reached the ground, afforded 

 abundant supplies of nutriment to the expanding bud ; and this 

 has subsequently grown into a perfect tree, enclosing the original 

 dead stem within its trunk. The original root-fibres are, in 

 such a case, surrounded in the ensuing year by another layer 



