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LETTERS OIS TREES. 



where expresses it, a mere multiplication of the cells 

 of the parent by a process of continuous groivth,^ 

 represents accordingly nothing more than the continu- 

 ous growth of the parent, and neither in itself nor in 

 its produce is possessed of any proper individuality. 



3. That this view is a mistaken one, I shall endeavour 

 to shew you. 



4. In the first place, to adopt and apply to the seed 

 Dr Carpenter's language regarding the bud, — what is 

 the seed after all but an extension,'' a continuous 

 product" of the general cellular basis ? Its involving 

 the union of two distinct kinds of cell is merely the 

 mode of extension adopted by Nature in this particular 

 case, — not involving any principle different from that 

 concerned in the bud, but merely a modification of it 

 in order to the attainment of certain ends which can 

 only be accomplished thereby. The seed differs indeed 

 from the bud in this, that it drops when ripe from the 

 parent plant, while the other continues adherent to it. 

 But this is not a necessary element in the constitution 

 of the bud. It obtains in the bud of the tree, because 

 the purposes of Nature in the formation of trees 

 require that it should. In the potato, however, and 

 still more in the Marcliantia polymorplia, the Lilium 

 bulbiferum^ and the Dentaria hulbifera, both the bud 

 and the seed stand on precisely the same footing in 

 that respect. The potato seed and the potato bud 



* Brit, and For. Med. Chir. Revievj, vol. i. p. 193. 



