THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
47 
To return from a long digression, buds are young 
shoots or branches. They may contain foHage or flowers 
or both, but always they^ belong to the stem and leaf feat- 
ures of the plant. This, their position, either terminal or 
axillary, determines; also their structure when dissected. 
Nothing, by the w^ay, can be prettier than the interior of 
some buds. Take, for instance, that of the horse-chestnut. 
Outside it is covered with glutinous scales to turn w^ater 
which, getting under them if unguarded, might freeze and 
rend the bud. Right here I am often asked by college stu- 
dents : If this is such an excellent plan, why do not all buds 
exhibit it'^ I usually anticipate by saying in a casual way 
that each plant has its own problems to solve; and what is 
good for one is not, perhaps, good for another. In briefer 
form, I own up squarely that I don't know. Good Professor 
D. C. Eaton, of Yale, told me early in my career as a teacher 
never to pretend I knew what I didn't. "The student is sure 
to catch on!" With his words dwelling in my memory I 
have avoided many sloughs. 
After removing the outer sticky scales of our horse- 
chestnut, we find the subsequent foliar bodies more and 
more leaf-like, till, finally, we reach the true leaves — seven- 
fingered, w^oolly leaves, neatly folded and packed away, 
Sometim.es we will discover in addition the inflorescence re- 
sembling a minute cauliflower, which itself is nothing but a 
mixed bud, never advancing beyond the bud condition. 
One hates to disrupt these little folded hands. How securely 
nature has packed them away ! 
Take, again, beech buds, long, tapering lance-points. 
The leaves within are things of rare beauty, deHcate to 
evanescence and clothed in the costliest silk. In some buds, 
horse-chestnut or other, we will find in miniature the whole 
inflorescence of the year. The microscope reveals, in the 
tiny buds, what parts of the flower are formed first and the 
