Surprising As This Union Of Separate Individuals In
Common Stock Must Always Appear, Every Tree Displays The
Same Fact, For
Buds must be considered as individual plants.
It is, however, natural to consider a polypus, furnished with
a mouth, intestines,
And other organs, as a distinct individual,
whereas the individuality of a leaf-bud is not easily realised,
so that the union of separate individuals in a common body
is more striking in a coralline than in a tree. Our conception
of a compound animal, where in some respects the individuality
of each is not completed, may be aided, by reflecting
on the production of two distinct creatures by bisecting a
single one with a knife, or where Nature herself performs
the task of bisection. We may consider the polypi in a
zoophyte, or the buds in a tree, as cases where the division
of the individual has not been completely effected. Certainly
in the case of trees, and judging from analogy in that of
corallines, the individuals propagated by buds seem more
intimately related to each other, than eggs or seeds are to
their parents. It seems now pretty well established that
plants propagated by buds all partake of a common duration
of life; and it is familiar to every one, what singular and
numerous peculiarities are transmitted with certainty, by
buds, layers, and grafts, which by seminal propagation never
or only casually reappear.
[1] The desserts of Syria are characterized, according to
Volney (tom. i. p. 351), by woody bushes, numerous rats,
gazelles and hares.
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