Experiments on Bulbiferous Plants. 283 



offensive, or to show that any flue or fire was connected with 

 the structure. I remain, Sir, &c. 



John Haythorn. 

 Wollaton Gardens, Dec. 1826. 



Art. XII. Experiments on the Growth of the Foliage of 

 Bulbiferous Plants. By Anthony Todd Thomson, M.D. 

 F.L.S. &c. 



Dear Sir, 



One advantage of the Gardener's Magazine, highly im- 

 portant to the labouring gardener, is the opportunity which it 

 affords of communicating to him facts connected with vege- 

 table physiology, which his time and his opportunities of 

 obtaining information, prevent him from acquiring through 

 books ; but which, if they were known to him, he might 

 prosecute with advantage, without any interruption to his 

 ordinary occupations. The following observations upon the 

 growth of the foliage of bulbiferous plants, I send to you, at 

 this time, because this class of plants is, now, in such a state 

 that any gardener may verify their accuracy. 



In my published Lectures on Botany, I have pointed out 

 the impropriety of regarding bulbs as roots ; and have there 

 stated, that they are merely appendages of roots, and some- 

 times of stems. From the manner in which a bulb vegetates, 

 it may be correctly regarded, also, as the centre of the plant 

 which is produced from it. The leaves rise, and are per- 

 fected at the apex, the increments of growth being added 

 at the base, or next to the bulb ; while, in the roots or radi- 

 cles, the additions are made at the points, as in all other 

 plants, a fact which was first noticed by Du Hamel. Thus, 

 if a thread be passed through the radicle of a Narcissus, for 

 example, it will remain at the same distance from the bottom 

 of the bulb, although the radicle elongate to twenty times its 

 original length : but, if a thread be passed, in the same man- 

 ner, through the leaf of the plant, it is carried upwards as the 

 leaf elongates. To determine the manner in which the incre- 

 ments of growth are deposited in the leaf, the following ex- 

 periment was made upon a Narcissus growing in a water 

 glass* 



On the 14th of February, 1823, a silk thread was passed 

 through one of the leaves of a Narcissus, one inch from its 

 apex ; another thread was also passed four inches below the 



