156 



LETTERS ON TREES. 



account of it, — and, the rather, because he gives it 

 in connection with an illustration which has always 

 seemed to me the happiest, as well as to furnish one 

 of the strongest arguments in its favour : — 



" Another view has been suggested, which at first sight 

 appears more worthy of adoption ; namely, that a tree may be 

 regarded as a collection of annual plants; the buds of each 

 year giving origin to those of the next, when their own term 

 of existence is expired. In a potato, for example, it is argued 

 that each year's growth terminates in the production of tubers 

 or underground stems, which contain the buds that are de- 

 veloped into distinct and independent plants in the ensuing 

 season ; these in their turn giving origin to tubers, whose 

 buds are to be developed in a subsequent year. Now, what 

 is true of the potato, it is urged, is true of an ordinary tree ; 

 the only difference being, that the remains of the previous 

 growths are persistent, although dead, and that thus a perma- 

 ment stem is formed, on which every generation of plants is 

 developed, as it were parasitically, and to which each genera- 

 tion makes an addition that is left behind when the leaves 

 decay."* 



3. The other view with which mine is compared is 

 one suggested by Professor Owen, in his Essay on 

 Parthenogenesis, This physiologist, besides holding 

 in common with myself, that a tree is to be regarded 

 as not one individual, but an agregate of individuals, 

 and that each series of buds should rank as a distinct 

 generation'' holds also that every leaf and even 

 every modified form of the same fundamental type, — 



^ 3d Edition,, p. 903. 



