CHAPTER VI. 



THE SEEDLING AND YOUNG PLANT (continued). 



THE BUDS AND LEAVES. 



THE buds of the oak those in the leaf -axils as well 

 as those at the tips of the young shoots are character- 

 istically short and broad ovoid bodies, consisting of 

 numerous overlapping brown scales covered with short, 

 silky hairs, especially at the margins (Fig. 19). These 

 scales are really the stipules of arrested leaves, as is 

 shown by the proper leaf -blades being developed as well 

 under certain circumstances, such as when nutritive ma- 

 terials are directed to the young buds. The same mor- 

 phological fact is also shown by the position of the in- 

 florescences and young leaves higher up in the bud, for 

 they spring from between the scales, and not from their 

 axils proper (see Fig. 32). It is of the highest impor- 

 tance to understand that a bud is simply the young 

 state of a shoot, and that it consists of the growing- 

 point of the shoot enveloped by closely-folded leaf 

 structures. In the oak the buds are already formed 

 before the end of June, and on looking closely into the 

 axils of the leaves on the young shoots which have by 



