352 The American Xuturali.it. 



[Ma; 



have the function of carbon assimilation forced upon them to 

 save the plant from destruction and to provide for the develop- 

 ment of the fruiting organs. As is well known, latent buds, 

 which have been in a dormant condition, may be, for years, 

 are frequently in such cases stimulated to development and 

 form leafy shoots. It is a very common occurrence as a result 

 of severe pruning or of injury to the ordinary leaves for young 

 flower axes, or buds, to develop leafy shoots with other flower 

 buds in the new leaf axils. There is a tendency here to force 

 the vegetative function upon the young flower axes, and if this 

 influence is felt before the specialized character of the floral 

 organs has been developed from the cells at the apex of the 

 axis, the development of these organs will be deferred, while 

 these cells assume the form and function of vegetative organs. 

 This is a matter, perhaps, of common observation as a result 

 of severe pruning, and in some plants can be very,easily dem- 

 onstrated by trial. But it serves well to show the influence of 

 disturbed nutrition on other or dormant parts of the plant 

 when the function of the existing vegetative leaves is arrested. 

 That function is forced from the ordinary and well developed 

 organs upon undeveloped or rudimentary ones, which readily 

 under this influence adapt themselves to continue this im- 

 portant office. This must not be regarded as an attempt to 

 explain the development of adventitious or supernumerary 

 buds, etc., or latent buds, in all cases, into leaf branches. Local 

 stimuli, and a number of other causes at times, call forth leafy 

 shoots from these. Nevertheless, in view of what has been said 

 above, the following proposition might be formulated. Nutri- 

 tion disturbed, and the development of the fruit product of the 

 plant being threatened, by the loss of carbon-assimilating 

 organs, the function of the latter may be taken up by some 

 other part of the plant, either rudimentary or undifferentiated, 

 their development into said organs being a direct result of that 

 disturbance. 



In the cases dealt with above, the function is either trans- 

 ferred to latent vegetative organs, or to undifferentiated tissues. 

 It is, therefore, simply and easily comprehended. Observa- 

 tions have been made, however, which tend to show that in 



