515 



say, the normal and the abnormal axillary buds, are alike the con- 

 comitants of foliar organs coloured by that chlorophyll which 

 habitually favours foliar development. How, then, can it be sup- 

 posed that when, out of a flower there is developed a cluster of 

 flower-bearing rays, the implied excess of nutrition causes the foliar 

 organs to abort ? It is true that very generally in a branched in- 

 florescence, the bracts of the several flower-branches are very small 

 (their smallness being probably due to that defective supply of 

 certain chlorophyll-forming matters, which is the proximate cause 

 of flowering) ; and it is true that, under these conditions, a flower- 

 ing axis of considei'alale size, for the development of which chloro- 

 phyll is less needful, grows from the axil of a dwarfed leaf. But 

 the inference that the foHar organ may therefore be entirely sup- 

 pressed, seems to me irreconcilable with the fact, that the fohar 

 organ is always developed to some extent before the axillary bud 

 appears. Until it has been shown that in some cases a lateral bud 

 first appears, and a foliar organ afterwards grows out beneath it, to 

 form its axil, the conception of an axillary bud of which the fohar 

 organ is suppressed, will remaui at variance with the estabhshed 

 traths of development. 



The above originally formed a portion of § 190. I have transferred 

 it to the Appendix, partly because it contains too much detail to 

 render it fit for the general argument, and partly because the inter- 

 pretations being open to some question, it seemed undesirable to risk 

 compromising that argument by including them. The criticisms 

 passed upon these interpretations have not, however, sufficed to con- 

 vince me of their incorrectness. Unfortunately, I have since had no 

 opportunity of verifying the above statements by microscopic exami- 

 nations, as I had intended. 



Though unable to enforce the inference drawn by further facts 

 more minutely looked into, I may add some arguments based on 

 facts that are well known. One of these is the fact that the so- 

 called axillary bud is not universally axillary — is not universally 

 seated in the angle made by the axis and an appended fohar organ. 

 Ill certain plants the axillary bud is placed far above the node, 

 half-way between it and the succeeding node. So that not only may 

 a segment of a phaenogamic axis be without the axillary bud, but 

 the axillary bud, when present, may be removed from that place in 

 which, according to Goethe, it necessarily exists. Another fact not 

 congruous with the current doctrine, is the common occurrence of 

 "adventitious" buds — the buds that are put out from roots and from 

 old stems or branches bare of leaves. The name under which they are 

 thus classed, is meant to imply that they may be left out of conside- 

 ration. Those, however, who have not got a theory to save bv 



