380 ON THE CONSTITUTION AND FUNCTIONS OF BULBS. 
fibrous roots, leaves, stem, flower, and seed, and which, when the last 
is ripe, wholly dies. This assemblage of gems, or germs, (latent or 
invisible principles of buds or flowers,) are seated and crowded together 
on or in what is called the radical plate, which appears to be constituted 
like the ovary of an animal, whence they are successively developed, 
either in the order of their seniority or of their position. The highest 
or oldest of the train developed this year is succeeded by the second 
of the series in the next, and so on, barring accidents, for ever/' 
Again 
“ The radical plate is a depressed cone of dense cellular matter, in 
which the incipient gems lie invisibly embedded. It always appears 
as the base of the largest division of the bulb, and the nucleus or source 
whence all gems, whether primary or'secondary, successively issue, 
without any notable diminution thereof. Under a common microscope 
its substance is uniform—not visibly granular, as might be expected ; 
the parts composing it being so blended together, that they cannot be 
distinguished till they are resolved into principals, or discharged as 
offsets. From the under surface of the radical plate, and particularly 
from the edges, the roots come forth, appearing to belong only to the 
superior gem or division which is in the act of expansion, because, as 
already observed, they are developed and decay together. The next 
year’s division is furnished with roots of its own, and has no depend¬ 
ence on those of its predecessor, they being very attenuated, and only 
annual.” 
An attentive reader cannot fail to observe the accordance between 
the description of the physical constituents and evolutions of the crocus 
by Dr. T., and our own account of the constituents and perennial 
development of the tulip. They throw light on each other, and render 
the last of more value than it was, by many, considered to possess. 
Dr. Trinchinetti’s opinion concerning the use which nature intends 
the bulbs to answer is well worth tarnscribing. 
“ Linnaeus,” says Dr. T., “ considered bulbs as hybernacula—that is, 
as winter storehouses, or bodies intended to preserve the germ of the 
future plant while vegetation is at rest, and to administer with their 
own substance its first nourishment, as the seed does to the embryo 
with the albuminous matter which it contains in its cotyledons. 
“ Nobody can doubt that bulbs were intended both to preserve and 
to nourish the germ ; but, if they were formed for these purposes only, 
why do they continue during the life of the plant, contrary to the habit 
of the buds on the branches of trees, and of the albuminous matter con¬ 
tained in the cotyledons of seeds, which, soon after the bud or young 
plant has been developed, disappear, or at least change their nature ? 
