202 ■ VegdaUe Physiology^ 



Art. III. Vegetable Physiology, "with reference to Gardening. 

 By Mr. IvIain. 



Sir, 



As phytologists are not yet quite agreed in their definitions 

 .of vegetable economy, and as it is probable many of your 

 readers are unacquainted with the different opinions on the 

 subject, I presume that a plain statement of the question may 

 not be either unsuitable to the purpose of your pages, nor 

 unacceptable to the novitiates who may read of, or be 

 engaged in, the art, of which your work is at once the mirror 

 and faithful chronicle. Indeed, one of the most valuable 

 characteristics of your work, is its chance of visiting those 

 obscure recesses of practical knowledge and intelligence, 

 whence may be elicited the most important ideas, which, from 

 the Unassuming modesty of the possessors, are, like the flowers 

 of the wilderness, "born to blush unseen," and lost to the 

 world, merely from want of seasonable excitement to their 

 developement, or a proper channel through which they can 

 be made public. 



To gain information on the subject of this paper, we 

 naturally look back to the patriarchs of the science. The 

 knowledge of the wise king of Israel, who " spoke of plants 

 from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that springeth out 

 of the wall," is lost to us ; but we have the collective wisdom 

 of Pliny, Malpighi, Grew, Tournefort, and Evelyn ; and, 

 though last not least, the far-famed Linnaeus, and Miller. 

 From these fathers of the art we learn, that vegetation is 

 "a kind of life, without sensation;" that, in character, plants 

 are trees or shrubs, herbs or intermediates ; in duration, are 

 annuals, biennials, or perennials ; in reproduction, are ovipa- 

 rous, viviparous, or both ; in organisation, are composed of 

 roots, either bulbous, tuberous, or fibrous ; of stems, either 

 herbaceous, shrubb}', or arborescent; of leaves, simple or 

 compound; of props, whether foot-stalks, stipulse, tendrils, 

 down, glands, spines, or bractes ; of buds, either present or 

 wanting, below or above ground ; of flowers, single or double, 

 or male, female, hermaphrodite, or neuter; of fruit, whether 

 contained in caskets, pods, bags, drupes, apples, berries, 

 cones, or nuts. In structure, are composed of outer and 

 inner bark, alburnum^ wood, and pith ; and that the whole is 

 charged with sap, which is either aqueous, resinous, gummous, 

 or oleaceous. 



The situation and texture, the uses and form, the crescive 

 phenomena, motion of the fluids, and changes of its colour 

 and qualities, constitute that branch of natural philosophy 



