180 Of Flowering, and its Results. 



so great, that he would allow them to use no other fresh vo 

 table food than grass. If he had been acquainted with th 

 simple fact that none of the Cruciferoe are deleterious, and th 

 all possess, in a greater or less degree, those properties th 

 render them more valuable than ordinary medicines in th 

 treatment of that disease, he might have been able to resto 

 many to health, by simply explaining to them the very evident 

 marks by which this order is characterized, and encouragm* 

 them to seek for such plants, and to make use of them without 

 apprehension. 



OF FLOWERING, AND ITS RESULTS. 



The article on Vegetable Physiology for the present month 

 is delayed for the purpose of preparing some necessary wood 

 cuts for its illustration, and in its place we offer the following 

 interesting remarks of Dr. Gray on the subject of Flowering. 



Plants begin to bear flowers at a nearly determinate period 

 for each species, which is dependent partly upon constitutional 

 causes, that we are unable to account for, and partly upon the 

 requisite supply of nutritive matter in their system. For, since 

 the flower and fruit draw largely upon the powers and nourish- 

 ment of the plant, while they yield nothing in return, fructifica- 

 tion is an exhaustive process, and a due accumulation of food is 

 requisite to sustain it. When the branch of a fruit tree, which 

 is sterile, or does not perfect its blossoms, is ringed or girdled 

 by the removal of a narrow ring of bark, the elaborated 

 juices, being arrested in their downward course, are accumu- 

 lated in the branch, which is thu3 enabled to produce fruit 

 abundantly ; while the shoots that appear below the ring, being 

 fed only by the crude ascending sap, do not bear flowers, 

 but push forth into leafy branches. So also a seedling shoot, 

 which would not flower for several years if left to itself, blos- 

 soms the next season when inserted as a graft into an older 

 trunk, from whose accumulated stock it draws. The actual 

 consumption of nourishment in flowering may be shown in a 

 variety of ways ; as by the rapid disappearance of the fari- 



