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Show [ 198 ] So in his filken fepulchre the Worm, Vvarm' d with new life, unfolds his larva-form; Erewhile aloft in wanton circles moves, And woos on Hy1nen-wings his velvet loves. XII. 1 • '' If prouder branches with exuberance rude Point their green ge1ns, their barren ihoots protrude; 466 wound the1n, ye SYLPHS' l with little knives, or bind A wiry ringlet round the f welling rind ; U!ifolds his larva-form. I. 462. The flower burfls forth from its larva, the herb, naked and perfeCt like a butterfly from its chryfalis ; winged with its carol; wing-ibeathcd by its calyx; conUting alone of the organs of reproduB.ion. The males, or fl:amens, lave their anthers replete with a prolific powder containing the vivifying fovil\;a; in the females, or pifl:ils, exifls the ovary, terminated by the tubular fligml. When the aJ1- thers burfl and fhed their bags of dufl, the male fovilla is received by the prol ific lymph of the fiigm::, and produces the feed or egg, whi ch is nourif11cd in the ovary. Sy!lcm of Vegetables tranflated from Linneus by the Lichfidd Society. p. 10. /Pound them, )'"Sylphs ! !. 467. Mr. Whitmill advifcd lo bind fvme of the mofl: vigorous fhoots with fb·ong wire, and even fome of the large roots; and Mr. Warner cuts, what he calls a wild worm about the body of the tree , or fcores the b ~r k quite to the wood like a fcrew with a fharp knife. Bradley on G ardening, Vol. II. p. 155· Mr. Fitzgerald produced flowers and ft uit on wall trees by cutting off a part of tlie bark. Phd. Trani. Ann. 1761. M. BufFun produced the fame cfFcCl by a flraight bandage put round a branch, Act. Paris, Ann. 1738, and concludes that an ingrafted branch bears better from its veffel$ being comprclfed by the callus. A compleat cylinder of the bark about an inch in height was cut off from the branch of a pear tree againfl: a wall in Mr. IIow;uJ ·s garden at Lid fi lJ about f.ve years ago, ( 199 ] BifcCl: with chiffel fine the root below ' Or bend to earth the inhofpitable bough. 470 the circumcifed part is now not above half the diameter of the branch above and below it, yet this branch has been full of fruit every year fince, when the other branches of the tree bore only fparingly. I lately obferved that the leaves of this wounded branch were fmaller and paler, and the fruit lefs in fi2;e, and ripened loaner than on the other parts of the tree, Another branch has the bark taken off not quite all round with much the fame effetl:. The theory of this curious vegetable faa has been eO:eemed difficult, but receives great light from the foregoing account of the individuality of buds. A flower-bud dies~ when it has perfeB.ed its feed, like an annual plant, and hence requires no place on the bark for new roots to pafs downwards; but on the contrary leaf-buds, as they advance into fhoots, form new buds in the axilla of every leaf, which new buds require new roots to pals down the bark, and thus thicken as well as elongate the branch, now if a wire or fl:ring be tied round the bark, many of thefe new roots cannot defcend, and thence ~ore of the buds will b::: converted into flower -buds. It is cufl:omary to debark oak-trees in the fpring, which are intended to be felled in. the enfuing autumn ; becaufe the bark comes off eafier at this feafon, and the fap-wood, or alburnum, is believed to become harder and more durable, if the tree remains till the end of fummer. The trees thus flripped of their bark put forth lboots as ufual ·with acorns on the 6th 7th and 8th joint, like vines; but in the branches I examined, the joints of the debarked trees were much fborter than thole of other oak-trees ; the acorns were more numerous ; and no new buds ·were produced above the joints which bore acorns. From hence it appears that the br~nchcs of debarked oak-trees produce fewer leaf-buds, :mel more flower -buds, which lafl: circumfbnce I fuppofc mull depend on their being fooner or later debarked in the vernat mont!is. And, fccundly, that the new buds of debarked oak- trees continue to obtain moifl:ure from the alburnum after the feafon of the af~ent of fap in other vegetables ceafes; which in this unnatural fl:ate of the debarked tree may a a as capillary tubes, like the alburnum of the fmall debarked cylinder of a pea r-tree abovementioned ; or m::ty continue to aB. as placental veffels, as happens to the animal embryon in cafes of fupcrfetation; when the fetus continues a month or two in the womb beyond its ufual time, of which lome infl:ances h:lVe been recorded, the piaccnta continues to fupply perhaps the double office both of nutrition and of refpiration. Or bmd to earth. I. -1-70. Mr. Hitt in his treatife on fruit-trees obfcrves that if a ,..igorous branch of a wall-tree be bent to the horizon, or beneath it,. it lofes it vigow: |