NuttaWs Introduction to Botany. 103 



trees and shrubs, which often die to the ground, or cast off 

 their leaves at the approach of winter, though, the motion of 

 the sap is arrested by the influence of the cold, and the gene- 

 ration of the year perishes ; yet besides the seed, nature has 

 here provided an ample source of regeneration in the innu- 

 merable buds, formed or ingrafted in the alburnum or sap- 

 wood of the root or stem ; by this means, at an early season 

 of the year, an invariable supply of vegetable beings are as 

 plentifully produced, as required by nature. The buds of 

 each tree or plant, containing within themselves individually, 

 all the rudiments of so many distinct vegetables, may be 

 transferred by ingraftment or growth in the earth, and thus 

 form as many distinct individuals, each again subject, ad infi- 

 nitum, to produce an additional ingrafted progeny of buds and 

 branches. The numerous buds of each tree, nourished 

 through the common medium of the trunk and branches, 

 perish after developement and maturity, and are succeeded 

 anew by another generation of ingrafting or protracting buds, 

 for which they have provided by the deposition of the albur- 

 num. The growth of every tree, as well as herb, is then strictly 

 annual ; and the trunk is produced by a curious junction of 

 dead and living matter. The rings of wood, which may be 

 counted in the transverse section of a tree, not merely indicate 

 its age, but the number of distinct generations of spontaneous 

 ingrafted individuals, which it has sustained. In the annual 

 kingdom, among the order Moluscae, examples of this kind of 

 aggregation are not uncommon, where many animals are in- 

 separably connected, and nourished through a common me- 

 dium. This agamous race of plants are always similar to 

 the parent from whence they have originated, as we all know 

 by the process of budding and ingrafting ; that these buds 

 or grafts partake of the age and accidents of the trunk on 

 which they are evolved, is improbable, if not impossible, as 

 they can in fact be influenced only by the stock to which they 

 are last transferred. 



" But the most obvious display of vitality in the vegetable 

 kingdom is the generation of a new race from sexual inter- 

 course, consequent on which, the seed is produced ; in fact, an 

 ovum like that of the birds and insects, containing a punctum 

 saliens awaking to life on the congenial addition of the requi- 

 site heat and moisture. This progeny of the flowers, though 

 specifically similar with the parent, is yet often subject to con- 

 siderable variation, as in the races of the animal kingdom. 



