444 
ON STOPPING THE SHOOTS OF FRUIT-TREES 
upon us, and which, if founded in fact, is one of the most wonderful 
phenomena exhibited in the physical creation. 
The doctrine of vegetable metamorphoses forms at present a distinct 
branch of botanical science, and is taught under the title of Morpho¬ 
logy. It maintains as a fundamental principle, that the foliage of 
plants is the grand plastic material out of which all the other members 
of a plant are formed; that, besides the natural form, colour, and func¬ 
tions of leaves, they are capable of being changed into bractea, involu- 
crums, spathas, or calyxes; transmuted into the most delicate and 
highly-coloured corollas, attenuated into filaments, redoubled into 
anthers, decomposed into atoms of pollen, convolved into columnar 
pistils, distended into capsules of leathery or bony texture, and filled 
with tens of thousands of living subdivisions of themselves, whence 
new individual plants (not leaves) may be raised. Added to all this, 
the leaves involve each other in many instances, so that the outermost 
is a thin cuticle (epicarpinin') ; an intermediate one is thickened into a 
delicious pulp (sar cocar pinin'); and another forms the stone (endo- 
carpium ); and the amount of all this brings us to the conclusion that 
flowers are only stunted shoots; that, by the sudden stopping of its 
lengthening tendency, the leaves become crowded together in whorls, 
the outermost changing into the external members of the flower, and 
the central leaves into the internal parts. 
This doctrine having originated with the immortal Linnaeus, claims, 
while it invokes, our respectful attention. It is a portion of that dis¬ 
tinguished naturalist’s ideas, which is now embraced by the highest 
grade of his followers—the patricians of the science; and who, while 
they have seized with avidity this transient notion of the learned 
Swede, have banished from the schools that which was the pride and 
employment of his useful life—the sexual system of botany. 
Whether the doctrine of vegetable morphology be rationally tenable 
or not, it is not now our business to inquire. That the different mem¬ 
bers of flowers are occasionally changed into leaves, we are well assured 
of; but whether the reverse be constantly the case, is, we venture to 
state, a doubtful matter. 
However, it deserves attention, and forms a fine subject for the 
exercise of an ingenious mind, capable of diving, or of having a wish 
to dive into the hidden processes of vegetation. On this ground 
we recommend the subject to the attention of our readers, some of 
whose opinions we hope to receive before we enter further into the 
matter. 
The grand difficulty lies in conceiving how it is possible that leaf- 
buds in the autumn may be changed into flower-buds in the spring, 
