110 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



PT. ir. 



I published this account of this tree in 1844. In 

 1849, Dr. Lindley writes as follows: — Neither is it 

 indispensable that bark should be present in order to 

 allow the passage of sap downwards, as is proved by 

 trees, whose bark has been accidentally destroyed, con- 

 tinuing to live for many years. In such cases the sup- 

 position is, that the falling sap passes laterally into the 

 medullary plates, and descends by them until it gets 

 into communication with those which end in bark, 

 when the usual channel of descent is resumed.' 



I take this supposition to be the Doctor's own 

 particular supposition : and a supposition most difficult 

 to swallow it is ! 



But the Doctor makes it unnecessarily so. Why 

 make the sap hop, skip, and jump from one medullary 

 plate to another? These plates all 'end in bark' 

 where there is bark to end in, and are all continuous 

 from end to end of the stem and branches, and, as I 

 assert, of the roots also. But that ' the falling sap ' 

 should descend by these medullary plates is about as 

 likely as that two meeting trains should pass one another 

 on the same tramway, or that if a man's veins were 

 destroyed his blood should flow to his heart through 

 the arteries which are at the same time conducting it 

 from his heart. And if the sap did descend at all 

 below the scar, the tree would increase below the scar, 

 which it does not, unless there is an outbreak of 

 branches below the scar. 



This is the gentleman who some pages before finds 



