218 View of the Theory respecting Vegetation. 



possessing a new and independent life, and thence in assuming, 

 in its subsequent growth, different habits from those of the 

 parent plant. The organizable matter which is given by the 

 parent to the offspring in this case, probably exists in the 

 cotyledons of the seed, in the same state as it exists in the 

 alburnum of trees ; and like that, it apparently undergoes 

 considerable changes before it becomes the true circulating 

 fluid of the plant : in some it becomes saccharine, in others 

 acrid and bitter, during germination.* In this process the 

 vital fluid is drawn from the cotyledons into the caudex of 

 the plumule or bud, through vessels which correspond with 

 those of the bark of the future tree, and are indeed perfect 

 cortical vessels. f From the point of the caudex springs the 

 first root, which, at this period, consists wholly of bark and 

 medulla, without any alburnous or woody matter ; and, if un- 

 interrupted by any opposing body, it descends in a straight 

 line towards the centre of the earth, in whatever position 

 the seed has been placed, provided it has been permitted to 

 vegetate at resUj 



Soon after the first root has been emitted, the caudex elon- 

 gates, and taking a direction diametrically opposite to that 

 of the root, it raises, in a great many kinds of plants, the coty- 

 ledon out of the soil, which then become the seminal leaves 

 of the young plant. || During this period the young plant 

 derives nutriment almost wholly from the cotyledons or seed- 

 leaves, and if those be destroyed, it perishes. Gravitation, 

 by operating on bodies, differently organized, and of different 

 modes of growth, appears at once the cause why, in the 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1805. t Ibid. 1809. \ Ibid. 1809* 



I! Ibid. 180^. 



