BOTANICAL SUBJECTS. • 175 



the chances of lea^-ing progeny are thereby immensely increased. 

 Just fancy -^hat advantage the Dalhergia Sissoo and Milling- 

 tonia horiensishoxe over many other plant.-^. If the upper portion 

 of the tree be in any way destroyed, a forest of root-shoots are 

 ready to continue its hf e, without the slow process and severe struggle 

 of continuing it through the seed-buds. The latter would have to 

 find a suitable place for germination, and have to wait for rain, 

 while the roots are there ready made, independent of rain, and 

 burst into energ}- the moment they are released from the branches 

 which have undergone destruction. The roots of the Dalbergia, 

 Millingtonia, and a hundred others are to all intents and purposes 

 rhizomes, or underground stems. 



If the plant do not need the underground buds for reproduc- 

 tion, they become useless encumbrances and absorbers of energy. 

 Thus, in many instances, they are likely to disappear, but may 

 re-appear by horticultural coaxing. In the struggle for life any 

 hampering nuisance, unless it ca?i be turned to good account, is 

 obviouslv a drawback. 



Let us now turn to the vine group of plants and see what 

 botanists think of their stem, and other parts developed thereon. 

 Asa Grray says : " In the grape vine the tendril is homologous 

 ■with stem, for the uppermost tendril is seen to be a cHrect con- 

 tinuation of the stem. The small bud, which appears in the axil 

 of the uppermost leaf, will in its growth produce another internode 

 and leaf, the present terminal tendril will have then become 

 lateral and opposite the leaf." In a note he says : " This forms 

 wh/it is called a sympodium, which is morphologically made up of 

 a series of superposed branches (originating from the axillary 

 buds), in contradistinction to a monopodum^^ which is a stem 

 made up of nodes originating in the terminal buds.* 



Now is the vine tendril a branch 1 Asa Gray gives a figure 

 at page 54 of his " Structural Botany," in which the lower nodes 

 have no axillary bud. This is supjDosed to have continued the 

 stem, and therefore has disappeared. I have examined a large 

 number of vine stems. There is a long row of vines and Ampe- 

 lopsis in the Royal Kew Gardens ; I cannot say I have found one 

 axilla without its bud, and, therefore, the vine stem appears to me 



* Le Maout and Decaisne thiuk this tendril a branching peduncle 

 opposed to the leaf, but it has no subtending bract. 



