250 PHILOSOPHICAL NOTES OX 



be lineal descendants, making, of course, due allowance for the 

 difference in structure and suitability to surroundings which ages 

 of evolution have wrought between the so-called flowerless and the 

 so-called flowering plants. 



The bud or undeveloped leaf-branch of pha^nogams is 

 enveloped in bud-scales, as a protection against the inimical 

 conditions of season and weather. Of these I have treated more 

 f ullv in another chapter. 



Asa Gray, in his " Structural Botany," says : " Buds are the 

 o-erms of stems," and that the cotyledons and plumule of the 

 embrvo are, morphologically, " the first bud, on the summit of the 

 initial stem." He did not see, however, or at all events he did not 

 say so, that the seed-bud presents no difference whatever from the 

 stem bud, other than that it is often, but not always, as we now 

 know, the amalgamation of the contents of a germ cell with those 

 of a sperm cell, and that it is prepared to lead an independent and 

 often variable life. Of this, however, more elsewhere. 



The axillary bud is usually single, but there is no law why 

 it should be always so. On the contrary, in many cases both of 

 crvptogams and pha?nogams, multiple buds occur. In Gleditschia 

 there are three buds under the base of the leaf. In the Tartarean 

 Honeysuckle, the Citrus, and others, more than one occur. Even 

 in Sargassum hacciferum (Fig. 93) two floats sometimes occur in 

 one axilla. It is true that in some cases the adventitious bud or 

 buds may be branches of the main bud, and O. Penzig, in his 

 " Studj sugli Agrumi," seems to have established that the spine in 

 the axilla of the Citrus is a scale of the bud. Rumphius, how- 

 ever in his " Herb. Amboyn," refers to a citrus spine which bore 

 flowers.* But whether we consider the additional or adventive 

 bud as a scale, or a leaf, or a branch is of little importance to an 

 evolutionist, who considers them all homologous organs. 



Multiple axillary buds are much like polyembry in seeds. 

 Instead of their being one bud, there are others in addition as side- 

 buds. These develop before the axis of the main bud is 

 lengthened. Had their dormancy been further protracted, while 

 the main bud developed, they would only appear as axillary buds 

 of the branch. 



* Vide " Oranges and Lemons of India and Cejlon," p. 317, Litno nipis. 



