Volume 3
A report on the progress of vegetable physiology during the year 1837 ... / Translated from the German by William Francis.
- Franz Meyen
- Date:
- 1839
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A report on the progress of vegetable physiology during the year 1837 ... / Translated from the German by William Francis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![promise to produce it very soon; moreover it has already been given in part in the recent papers of Dr. Schleiden.* That which was assumed for the cauliculus is also consider- ed valid for the separate internodes ; for each of them is said to proceed from the petioles (which have remained in a state of cohesion,) of the leaves becoming free higher up. The unte- nableness of these statements is already sufficiently shown by the observation respecting the division of the ligneous bun- dles of the stem and their course to the actual leaves, yet in this case the young and the old stem must be examined, and in fact, from immediately after its appearance between the cotyle- dons to the flower, &c, But the history also of the develop- ment of the stem, and the leaves which proceed from it, which is constantly effected in a similar way as in the formation of the cotyledons, refutes this view of M. Wttewaall, upon which he has founded the entire history of the development of the stem. The subject is treated very nearly in the same way as in I. Meyer’s celebrated memoir in the 7th volume of the Linnea. In the second memoir, on the further growth of the stem, M. Wttewaall also shows the greatest circumspection and ac- quaintance with the literature on the subject, yet he holds more to the side of the French physiologists. The third chap- ter, in which the subterranean stem is treated of, deserves espe- cial attention. ‘The subterranean stem occurs in herbaceous plants as well as in shrubs and trees; it is thinner than the air stem, and the leaves occur in the form of rudimentary scales which occupy the same position as the leaves on the air stem. If the latter is, as the author says, provided with stripes of the remaining petioles, then we find them also on the subter- ranean stem. True subterranean stems occur in Corchorus olitorius, L., Spirea sorbifolia, Syringa, Rosa, Clethra alni- folia, where but lately they were regarded as true roots. Al- though the creeping roots of trees and shrubs are able to de- velope buds under favourable circumstances, yet this is pecu- liar in a much higher degree to the subterranean stem, for all its scales have buds in their axes. Not rarely do we find in the trees above mentioned some, the stems of which are sur- * [Of the papers here referred to, translations have been given in Nos. 73 and 74 of the L. and E. Phil. Mag., and Part VI. of Taylor’s Scientific Me- moirs,—W. F.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33490065_0003_0118.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
