86 BUDS ON STEMS. 



restricts the freedom of another by pushing it aside or competing for its supply of 

 air and light. Hundreds of rudimentary buds, not only at the base but scattered 

 over the entire length of the branch, remain dormant in the Tamarisk branch, as it 

 grows thicker and thicker, and thus is explained the fact that shoots springing from 

 such branches have an almost inexhaustible store of lateral shoots, and are capable 

 of producing every year afterwards hundreds of fresh shoots. 



Those reserve-buds which are formed in the cortical tissue and have no connec- 

 tion with the wood of the stem which bears them, for the most part maintain 

 their vitality only for a few years. The dormant buds at the extremities of latent 

 branches may, on the other hand, preserve their capacity for development for 

 many years, although they undergo no change either in shape or in size. No 

 doubt many of them die in the course of a year or two without being replaced 

 by others; whilst many others which perish have their places filled by new ones 

 developed at the ends of embedded branches. But these are rare occurrences 

 in comparison with the large number of cases where dormant buds retain their 

 vitality for many years. 



Suppose the case of a tree one hundred years old, which has been shattered 

 by a violent storm. With its crown of foliage torn down and its great branches 

 broken off and strewn upon the ground, it reminds one of the ruins of a building of 

 which roof, gables, battlements, and walls have been partially demolished. Where 

 previously thousands of leafy boughs formed a spreading crown, now a few riven 

 stumps are seen standing in dreary solitude. The tree has the appearance of being 

 hopelessly destroyed, and one would anticipate that its trunk would dry up 

 completely in the following year. Yet, marvellous to relate, fresh life quickens in 

 the old and shattered trunk. Buds which have lain dormant in the cortex during 

 scores of years stretch out, push their way through the fissures in the bark and 

 develop into vigorous branches, and within a twelvemonth the thick stumps of the 

 old trunk and branches are covered over with a drapery of fresh shoots which 

 have buds set in the axils of their leaves. After another year has passed lateral 

 branches develop from some of these buds, and this process continues until, in 

 about ten years, the maimed tree becomes furnished with a new, densely-ramifying 

 crown of foliage. Who, after witnessing such a phenomenon as this, can doubt 

 that the arrested development of a portion of the cauline buds is an adaptation 

 to ensure trees and shrubs against destruction in case of their being fractured 

 by the wind or otherwise mutilated, or that dormant buds are to be looked upon 

 as a reserve to meet possible accidents in the future! 



The fact that twigs which have shed themselves or succumbed to adverse 

 external influences are replaced out of the store of dormant buds or by the buds 

 of the callus, has led to various interferences on the part of man with the natural 

 growth of cultivated plants, and has given rise to a whole series of methods of 

 propagation, which have been employed by farmers and foresters ever since ancient 

 times. To this class of operations belongs, for example, the method employed to 

 promote the growth of underwood, which mainly depends on the development 



