128 Mr. A. Henfrey on the Progress of Physiological Botany : 
Labiatre ; but the author states that this is incorrect, inasmuch as 
these latter are the commencement of the central ligneous sy- 
stem, being in fact afterwards united together into a ring by new 
bundles which are produced between them. 
The author says he formerly imagined these secondary wood 
masses to have the import of branches, but he has now given up 
this opinion, having found the structure to be normal in several 
other instances. In trees with opposite leaves, like the ash and 
horse-chestnut, the woody mass presents the following pecu- 
liarities in the youngest internode : the vascular bundles from 
each petiole, arranged in a semicircle, unite with those of its 
fellow to form a circular or rather somewhat quadrangular mass ; 
at the next node below, this opens on opposite sides to receive the 
bundles of the petioles there situated, and again closes. In Ca- 
lycanthus the fibrous substance of the petiole also forms a semi- 
circle, containing the vascular bundles of all the nerves of the 
leaf except that of the lowest or outermost nerve on each side, 
which remains isolated. This isolation is persistent after the 
two semicircular fibrous bodies have united at the node to form a 
ring, and thus it happens that the bark of the new-formed stem 
contains four smaller vascular bodies, outside the regular ring of 
wood and occupying the four obtuse angles. Tracing the course 
downward in the stem, we find, at every node, that not only the 
central ring, but the cortical woody bodies receive accessions, and 
they have grown independently. In Calycanthus floridiis there- 
fore (and in C. grcecox also, although it is not so distinctly ex- 
hibited here), the four cortical ligneous bodies originate in the 
leaf, run down in the angles of the gutter-shaped petiole, distinct 
from the central mass, and enter the bark at the nodes, where 
each of them unites with one similar coming down from the leaf 
above and another coming from the leaf opposite. This obser- 
vation has already been made, substantially at least, by Gaudi- 
chaud, but was doubted, without statement of the reason, by 
Lindley. Any one may readily satisfy himself of its eorrectness 
who will examine this common shrub. [I found the above de- 
scription of the structure perfectly correct as regards C.floridus ; 
I have not examined C. prcecox . — 
The woody stems of certain climbing Bapindacece are still 
more remarkable on account of the number and size of the late- 
ral woody masses ; sometimes as many as ten of these occur, in- 
closed in a common bark, and these rapidly increase in size to 
* The arrangement of the woody bundles of the CucnrhitacecB which liave 
pentagonal stems, described by Dr. Stocks in the ‘ Ann. of Nat. Hist.’ for 
Aug. 1846, bears some relation to this point. It would be interesting to 
ascertain whether any of them remain distinct, or if they become blended as 
in the Labiatcc, — Rep. 
