EQ 
April 18, 1884.] 459 {Branner, 
The Course and Growth of the Fibro- Vascular Bundles in Palms. By John 
Casper Branner, B. S. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, October 19, 1883.) 
The classification of phenogamous plants as endogens and exogens was 
based upon the theory of the supposed course and development of the 
fibro-vascular bundles in.the stem of the palm, That a question of so 
much importance botanically has received no more careful attention, is 
probably due to the fact that the original theory of endogenous growth 
was considered so simple, satisfactory, and self-evident from a transection 
of a palm trunk, that its very simplicity wasan impediment to investigation. 
Jomparatively few Botanists have given especial attention to the subject 
of the structure of the palm stem, and those who have done so, have en- 
countered so many difficulties in obtaining proper material,* and in 
getting satisfactory results from material to be had, that our certain knowl- 
edge upon the origin and course of the fibro-vascular bundles is still con- 
fused, and the theories and explanations of growth unsatisfactory and 
even perplexing. The best observers failed to grasp the whole subject, 
while others have given us masses of useless, irrelevant, and erroneous 
matter with only here and there a useful fact.. From such results it is so 
difficult to select that which is useful, that it is simpler to leave the whole 
to one side and do the work all over from the beginning. 
The difficulty, almost impossibility, of tracing the course of the fibro- 
vascular bundles in the hard, complex palm stem, has added not a little to 
the uncertainty and doubt that every one has felt who has advanced a 
theory of growth, or tried to prove their direction by actual dissection. 
The peculiar structure of the trunk of the palm was mentioned about 
300 B. C., by Theophrastus in his Historia Plantarum, Bk. I., Chap. LX. 
In the sixteenth century, Rumphius, French Consul on the Dutch Ts- 
land of Amboyna, called attention to the same point, and in the seven- 
teenth century his observations were confirmed by those of P. Labat, in 
the West Indies, and also’ by those of Desfontaines, made in Tunis and 
Algiers. 
As a botanical question it may be said to have been opened by Desfon- 
taines, member of the French Academy of Sciences, who, while he pro: 
pounded a theory, personally took very little part in the discussion he had 
raised.| A general statement of his theory given by Mirbelt is sufficient for 
present purposes. In the “Fragment d’un voyage dans les Régences de 
Tunis et d’Alger, fait de 1783 & 1786,” p. 290, Desfontaines says: ‘La 
* Mirbel went to Africa to study the structure of the date palm, but even there 
found it almost impossible to obtain a grown one, and was about to abandon 
his work when a gentleman gave him a specimen. 
t His views were published in the ‘ Mémoires de l’Institut National,” Vol J., 
1708, pp. 478-602. 
{ Comptes Rendus de l’ Académie des,Sciences, 1843, Vol, I., June 12. 
