internode of the latter ceases to lengthen, the leaf has actually arrived at its complete formation. When fully grown it repeats in a much more perfect manner the functions previously performed by the cotyledons: it aërates the sap that it receives, and returns the superfluous portion of it downwards through the bark to the root; it also sends tubular tissue down between the medullary sheath and the bark, thus forming the first ligneous stratum, a part of which is incorporated with the bark, the remainder forming wood.

During these operations, while the plumule is ascending, its leaf forming and acting, and the woody matter created by it descending, the cellular tissue of the stem is forming, and expanding horizontally, to make room for the new matter forced into it; so that developement is going on simultaneously both in a horizontal and perpendicular direction. This process may not inaptly be compared to that of weaving, the warp being the perpendicular, and the weft the horizontal, formation. In order to enable the leaf to perform its functions of aeration completely, it is traversed by veins originating in the medullary sheath, and has delicate pores (stomates), which communicate with a highly complex pneumatic system extending to almost every part of the plant.

Simultaneously with the descent of woody matter downwards from the leaf, the emission of young roots, and their increase by addition to the cellular substance of their points, take place. They thus are made to bear something like a definite proportion to the leaves they have to support, and with which they must of necessity be in direct communication.

After the production of its first leaf by the plumule, others successively appear in a spiral direction around the axis at its growing point, all constructed alike, connected with the stem or axis in the same manner, and performing precisely the same functions as have been just described. At last the axis ceases to lengthen; the old leaves gradually fall off; the new leaves, instead of expanding after their formation, retain their rudimentary condition, harden, and fold over one another, so as to be a protection to the delicate point of growth; or, in other words, become the scales of a bud. We have now a shoot with a woody axis, and a distinct pith and

bark; and of a more or less conical figure. At the axil of every leaf a new growing point had been generated during the growth of the axis; so that the shoot, when deprived of its leaves, is covered from end to end with little, symmetrically arranged, projecting bodies, which are the buds.

The cause of the figure of the perfect shoot being conical is, that, as the wood originates in the base of the leaves, the lower end of the shoot, which has the greatest number of strata, because it has the greatest number of leaves above it, will be the thickest; and the upper end, which has had the fewest leaves to distend it by their deposit, will have the least diameter. Thus that part of the stem which has two leaves above it will have wood formed by two successive deposits; that which has nine leaves above it will have wood formed by nine successive deposits; and so on: while the growing point, as it can have no deposit of matter from above, will have no wood, the extremity being merely covered by the rudiments of leaves hereafter to be developed.

If at this time a cross section be examined, it will be found that the interior is no longer imperfectly divided into two portions, namely, pith and skin, as it was when first examined in the same way, but that it has distinctly two internal, perfect, concentric lines, the outer indicating a separation of the bark from the wood; and the inner, a separation of the wood from the pith the latter, too, which in the first observation was fleshy, and saturated with humidity, is become distinctly cellular, and altogether or nearly dry.

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III. With the spring of the second year, and the return of warm weather, vegetation recommences.

The uppermost, and perhaps some other, buds, which were formed the previous year, gradually unfold, and pump up sap from the stock remaining in store about them; the place of the sap so removed is instantly supplied by that which is next it; an impulse is thus given to the fluids from the summit to the roots; fresh extension and fresh fibrils are given to the roots; new sap is absorbed from the earth, and sent upwards through the wood of last year; and the phenomenon called the flow of the sap is fully completed, to continue with greater or less velocity till the return of winter. The growing point

lengthens upwards, forming leaves and buds in the same way as the parent shoot: a horizontal increase of the whole of the cellular system of the stem takes place, and each bud sends down ligneous matter within the bark and above the wood of the shoot from which it sprang; thus forming on the one hand a new layer of wood, and on the other a fresh deposit of liber.

In order to facilitate this last operation, the old bark and wood are separated in the spring by the exudation from both of them of the glutinous slimy substance called cambium; which appears to be expressly intended, in the first instance, to facilitate the descent of the subcortical tissue from the growing buds; and, in the second place, to assist in generating the cellular tissue by which the horizontal dilatation of the axis is caused, and which maintains a communication between the bark and the centre of the stem. This communication has, by the second year, become sufficiently developed to be readily discovered, and is effected by the medullary rays spoken of in the last book. It will be remembered that there was a time when that which is now bark constituted a homogeneous body with the pith; and that it was after the leaves began to come into action that the separation which now exists between the bark and pith took place. At the time when the latter were indissolubly united they both consisted of cellular tissue, with a few spiral vessels upon the line indicative of future separation. When a deposit of wood was formed from above between them they were not wholly divided the one from the other, but the deposit was effected in such a way as to leave a communication by means of cellular tissue between the bark and the pith; and, as this formation, or medullary ray, is at all times coetaneous with that of the wood, the communication so effected between the pith and bark is quite as perfect at the end of any number of years as it was at the beginning of the first; and so it continues to the end of the growth of the plant.

The sap which is drawn from the earth into circulation by the unfolding leaves is exposed, as in the previous year, to the effect of air and light; is then returned through the petiole to the stem, and sent downwards through the bark,

to be from it either conveyed to the root, or distributed horizontally by the medullary rays to the centre of the stem.

At the end of the year the same phenomena occur as took place the first season: wood is gradually deposited by slower degrees, whence the last portion is denser than the first, and gives rise to the appearance called the annual zones: the new shoot or shoots are prepared for winter, and are again elongated cones, and the original stem has acquired an increase in diameter proportioned to the quantity of new shoots which it produced, new shoots being to it now, what young leaves were to it before.

IV. The third year all that took place the year before is repeated more roots appear; sap is again absorbed by the unfolding leaves; and its loss is made good by new fluids introduced by the roots and transmitted through the alburnum or wood of the year before; new wood and liber are deposited by matter sent downwards by the buds; cambium is exuded; the horizontal developement of cellular tissue is repeated, but more extensively; wood towards the end of the year is formed more slowly, and has a more compact character; and another ring appears indicative of this year's increase.

In precisely the same manner as in the second and third years of its existence will the plant continue to vegetate, till the period of its decay, each successive year being a repetition of the phenomena of that which preceded it.

V. After a certain number of years the tree arrives at the age of puberty: the period at which this occurs is very uncertain, depending in some measure upon adventitious circumstances, but more upon the idiosyncrasy, or peculiar constitution, of the individual. About the time when this alteration of habit is induced, by the influence of which the sap or blood of the plant is to be partially directed from its former courses into channels in which its force is to be applied to the production of new individuals rather than to the extension of itself; about this time it will be remarked that certain of the young branches do not lengthen, as had been heretofore the wont of others, but assume a short stunted appearance, probably not growing two inches in the time which had been previously sufficient to produce twenty inches

of increase. Of these little stunted branches, called spurs, the terminal bud acquires a swollen appearance, and at length, instead of giving birth to a new shoot, produces from its bosom a cluster of twigs in the form of pedicels, each terminated by a bud, the leaves of which are modified for the purposes of reproduction, grow firmly to each other, assume peculiar forms and colours, and form a flower, which had been enwrapped and protected from injury during the previous winter by several layers of imperfect leaves, now brought forth as bracts. Sap is impelled into the calyx through the pedicel by gentle degrees, is taken up by it, and exposed by the surface of its tube and segments to air and light; but, having very imperfect means of returning, all that cannot be consumed by the calyx is forced onwards into the circulation of the petals, stamens, and pistil. The petals unfold themselves of a dazzling white tinged with pink, and expose the stamens; at the same time the disk changes into a saccharine substance, which is supposed to nourish the stamens and pistil, and give them energy to perform their functions.

At a fitting time, the stigmatic surface of the pistil being ready to receive the pollen, the latter is injected upon it from the anthers, which have remained near for that particular purpose. When the pollen touches the stigma, the grains adhere by means of its viscid surface, emitting a delicate membranous tube, which pierces into the stigmatic tissue, lengthens there, and conveys the matter contained in the pollen towards the ovules, which the tube finally enters by means of their foramen.

This has no sooner occurred than the petals and stamens fade and fall away, their ephemeral but important functions being accomplished. The sap which is afterwards impelled through the peduncle can only be disposed of to the calyx and ovary, where it lodges: these two swell and form a young fruit, which continues to grow as long as any new matter of growth is supplied from the parent plant. At this time the surface of the fruit performs the functions of leaves in exposing the juice to light and air; at a subsequent period it ceases to decompose carbonic acid, gains oxygen, loses its green colour, assumes the rich ruddy glow of maturity; and the