2 ON THE INTERIOR BUDS OF ALL PLANTS. 



and paucity of numbers, may perhaps well deserve to form 

 the foundation of a natural method, and open to us that 

 which nature herself designed as the commencement of such 

 a plan. I shall first give the five different manners of shoot- 

 ing of the bud, and then enter into farther details concern- 

 ing this important subject. 

 The bud let. All these plants which shoot their bud from the 



dSent '^'^ nearest line of life, whether in branch or twig: as trees, 

 mcdes, form- shrubs, and semishrubs. 



Imu'r" "divl 2d. All those plants that rise from the earth each year, 

 sious of plants, having u new stem, let their real existence be long or short, 

 and that shoot their bud from the root. 



3d. The plants that have no flower stem, but that have in 

 its stead a rallying point, which is immediately discovered 

 by a band or knot; from which the flower buds proceed, 

 and which is found only in grains and grasses. 



4th. Those plants which have no regular flower stem, but 

 which are divided from the last by shooting a few partial 

 vessels, with the line of life, just before flowering, enclosing 

 the flovyer buds: but which are all concealed together with- 

 in the cuticle of the leaf: as in the palms, arums, and ail 

 plants having grass leaves, without bands or bulbs. 

 5th. All plants that shoot their buds from a bulb. 

 These five collections of plants are all 1 can gather 

 from the most exact examination and dissection of British 

 as well as exotic plants ; and it appears to me to lay open 

 that view to the discovery of the system of nature I have so 

 long and so ardently sought. But this subject I shall enter 

 into more fully when better prepared to give satisfaction to 

 the public ; at present I shall confine myself to the shooting 

 of the bud in the stem of plants. 

 Miinnerof Of the 1st example, or manner in which buds shoot in 



biiT'-"f ^^i-s *'*^^^' shrubs, and semishrubs, I have already given many- 

 Ac. descriptions : it is as beautiful a process as nature presents : 

 that so soft, so tender a being, should pass through so hard a 

 substance unhurt, that by the moisture of the pith (retained 

 for the purpose) the wood should be separated into collec- 

 tions of vessels, and made to bend both ways, so as to form 

 n covered way for the bud, that it may pass in the midst, un- 

 pressed and unconfined, is a conception that the view of the 



specinacR 



