BUDS AND BRANCHES. 67 



expresses admirably the purposes for which the buds are 

 formed. 



The scales which envelope the bud are clearly designed to 

 protect the embryo branch and leaves of the next season, which 

 they surround, against the humidity and cold of winter. They 

 vary in their texture, external covering, and thickness, in dif- 

 ferent plants. In the beech and lime tree, the bud scales are 

 thin and dry ; in the willow and magnolia, thick and downy, 

 and in the horse-chestnut and balsam poplar, they are covered 

 externally with a plentiful exudation of gummy resin, and 

 thickly clothed internally with a woolly substance. By this 

 beautiful provision both wet and cold are effectually excluded. 

 Plants are most unquestionably a peculiar form of life, and 

 when we see them thus modifying their organs to escape what 

 is hurtful to their existence in the air, and constantly availing 

 themselves in the development of their roots of what is con- 

 ducive to their growth in the earth, we must admit them to be 

 somewhat elevated in the scale of nature and very far removed 

 from the conditions of inorganic matter. 



la the Smilax rotundifolia, or common green brier, the 

 buds are protected through the winter by the dilated and per- 

 sistent base of the petiole or stalk of the old leaves, which 

 remains on this shrub throughout the winter and falls away in 

 the spring. In the Platanus occidentalis, or Plane tree, we 

 seek in vain for the buds in their ordinary situation, the axils 

 of the leaves, for they are protected during their growth, and 

 are concealed within the swollen base of the petiole. This is 

 well seen in autumn, when, on removing the leaf from the 

 stem, the base of the stalk is found to form a cap or covering 

 to the leaf buds. 



Buds contain in their interior, in an embryo state, the whole 



