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4 INDIVIDUALITY SECT. EL. 4
long fhoots of vines, willows, and briars; in this refpect refembling the wires of ftrawberries and other creeping plants. Thus the caudex of perennial herbaceous plants confifts of a broad plate, buried be- neath the foil to proteét it from the froft; while the caudex of buds of trees confifts of a long vafcular cord extending from the bud on the branch to the radicle beneath the earth, and endures the winter frofts without injury.
3. Thefe buds are properly biennial plants, as they are generated in one fummer, and in the next either produce feeds and die, or pro- duce other buds, whofe caudexes form a new bark over the former one, that of the laft year firft becoming a fofter or more porous wood, called alburnum, or fap-wood, and gradually hardeninge into folid timber, which ceafes to pofiefs vegcetable life.
Thefe long caudexes of the individual buds of trees, which confti- tute their bark, are well feen in the cloth made from the mulberry- bark brought from Otaheite. On infpeéting this cloth the long fibres
are feen in fome places to adhere, where it is probable they occafñon-
ally inofculate, like fome of the veflels in animal bodies; becaufe when fome buds are cut off, the neighbouring ones flourifh with greater vigour, being fupplied with more of the nutritious juices.
This informs us why the upper lip of an horizontal wound made in the bark of a tree /grows downwards with fo much greater expedition than the under one grows upwards to meet it; as the de- feending caudexes of the individual buds are fupplied dire&tly with nutriment from the vegetable arteries after the oxygenation of the blood in their leaves; whereas the under lip of the wound is nou- rifhed only by the lateral or inofculating veflels, which fupplies us with another argument againft the individuality of trees, and in fa- vour of that of buds.
4. The buds producing flowers are each an individual being as well
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