REPOSE OF PLANTS. 
91 
deciduous when the young shoots and leaves make their appear¬ 
ance. In all these cases, whether the retreat is into a smaller 
or a greater extent of the plant, that retreat is accompanied by 
a consolidation of the sap or juice of the plant; and while this 
consolidation lasts, there is no growing action of any descrip¬ 
tion whatever. Where plants are rooted in the ground, the 
roots have a less perfect ripening than the above-ground stem, 
and the moisture and heat radiating from the earth bring them 
sooner into action; for they extend their rootlets before a bud 
on the plant shows the slightest indication of expanding. If 
this winter growth of rootlets is too abundant, the plant becomes 
delicate, and always the more subject to injury the harder it is 
in the wood ; because the growth of the under part of it be¬ 
comes too strong for the upper part to bear. 
The observant and reflective reader will not fail to see in this 
hybernating and consolidation of the sap or juice of plants, a 
sort of approximation towards the nature of seeds ; the state 
in which all plants are most enduring, and least subject to 
injury. The time during which any individual plant can be 
kept alive is limited to not a very long period of years ; but 
there are evidences of seeds having remained in the ground for 
considerably more than a thousand years without losing their 
vitality. Artificial culture, while it increases both the temporary 
growth and the beauty of flowering, invariably shortens the 
duration of the plant, and, indeed, makes it tender in its whole 
structure. Hence, in those exotics which are hybrid, the 
mother plants never last long in a healthy state; and the suc¬ 
cession is kept up by cuttings, which, in very many instances, 
have to be removed every year ; as, when properly treated, they 
flower at the same time as the mother plants. When seeds are 
obtained, either in this country or by importation, the plants 
are longer in coming into flower than cuttings; but they are 
more hardy and last longer, apparently from the repose which 
the plant has had while in the state of a seed. 
Such are a few facts and inferences which have occurred to 
me in studying the repose of plants; and I hope they will be 
useful to some of the less experienced readers of the Florist’s 
Journal. 
C. D. 
