ON THE INTERIOR BUDS OF ALL fLANTS.. 



z 



specimen alone could prove the truth of; but it is so easily 



setn, that it requires only to strip the bark from a branch of 



any tree, and plenty of i>uds will be found just shooting from 



the interior, making their way through the hard substance. 



It can never be mistaken by a careful observer for that harsh 



and diminutive piece of wood, which, when the bark is taken 



off, appears as passing to each leaf; for this is hard, but the 



buds are always found at the end, very soft and succulent, 



aud covered with albumen. 



To the 2d exaujple I shall now turr\, namely, that in Shooting of 



which the btids shoot each vear from the root, and the stem '\^^^"'' ^^ 

 ' I 111 . ' 1 1 m p , plants that 



IS but annual, let the root oe older or not. 1 his tor- a long rise yearly 



time puzzled me beyond measure, and few will conceive the ^'^°°*^^®**^^^» 

 labour the discovery has cost me, and the quantity of herba- 

 ceous and annual plants I have dissected before I could 

 perceive the whole truth. Perhaps it even exceeds In 

 beauty and contrivance the shooting of the bud* in trees. 

 I had long been convinced, that the bud shot from the root, 

 but except in those plants where it runs aero s the pith, 

 and where I had traced it occasionally up the wood vessels, 

 1 could not discover what became of the inids, after they 

 had disappeared at the beginning of the stem, till I found 

 them again in the axilla of >he leaves. I shall now t->ke a 

 pentandria digynia plant, and show the whole process of its 

 growth. 



I have already said, that the bud is formed in the interior of 

 the root of annual plants, or such as die down to the ground 

 every year ; and shall now show how it continues its way in 

 those plants that cross the pith, and then proceed to the buds 

 that do not cross it. The best way of dissecting for both 

 these purposes, is to take a long succession of plants, each 

 a few days or a week older than the precedine. The altera- 

 tion this little time produces in the interior is amazing. 

 Taking a very young heracleum spondyliuro ; the prepara- Formatjonof 

 tion for formina: these immense leaves afe all that appears the hcradewO 

 at first in the plant ; and this is al confined to the bark only, 

 wh'ch It enlarges. The leaves differ in some measure in 

 their manner of forming from the leaves of trees and shrubs, 

 though they are equally woven : no part is more indebted 

 to those occasional hair4 [mentioned in a formtr letter) than 

 B 2 the 



