THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A BEECH TWIG. 371 
Some of these 324 buds have retained a sufficient amount of 
vitality to carry them forward through the annually deposited 
layers of wood and bark, so that they still continue to maintain 
them position, year after year, on the outside of the bark. 
Several of these buds are visible in our plate on the surface of the 
central axis of our twig, and also on that of its first and second 
side shoots, and more may be detected on the surface of the 
other shoots, if the plate be examined with a small magnifier. 
For example, there is a rudimentary bud on the primary 
axis, just below the set of annuli, marked 52, on the left side 
of the twig, which was matured by a leaf which fluttered in 
the winds and was bathed in the showers of the spring and 
summer of 1851 ; that leaf fell from off the axis in autumn, and 
left that bud on its surface, which has just life enough left in it 
to enable it to keep on the outside ; that bud has been in that 
torpid condition for twelve years. And the bud, just above it, 
on the same side, nearly opposite that curved shoot, which is 
so instructive, was matured in the autumn of 1852, and has, 
therefore, been torpid for eleven years. 
In cases like these where a bud has been formed by a leaf 
which has died years ago, and has maintained its position on 
the outside, if a section be made at the point of the stem 
where it is seen to protrude, the vegetative course of the bud 
will be marked by a line of pith, which traverses the several 
layers from the centre outwards. 
In other instances the abortive buds of our twig died and 
were detached from the shoot the first year, or they retained 
their life but continued totally inactive. In the latter case the 
abortive bud necessarily sank below the surface, and became 
buried beneath succeeding annual deposits of bark and wood. 
The trunks and branches of trees always contain an immense 
number of these buried buds, which may remain for years 
entombed below their bark in a state of passive vitality, like a 
seed which is buried in the ground. 
Leaving out of consideration the rudimentary buds visible to 
the eye unaided, or assisted by a magnifier, on the surface of 
our twig, and supposing one half of the rest to have died, it 
is probable, even then, that there are more than a hundred 
abortive buds or points of vegetation buried beneath the bark 
of this little twig, only 13 years old, and 201 inches in length ! 
What, then, must be the immense number of abortive buds in 
powerful branches which have been growing for centuries, or 
in the stem of a tree built by the leaf-labour of a thousand 
years. The vitality of those buds is not destroyed. Their 
parent leaves, it may be, have died and dropped from the 
tree many, many years ago, but they still retain unimpaired 
the fife which they then received. Let some of the leading 
