Phytologia; or the philosophy of agriculture and gardening. With the theory of draining morasses and with an improved construction of the drill plough / By Erasmus Darwin.

  • Erasmus Darwin
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phytologia; or the philosophy of agriculture and gardening. With the theory of draining morasses and with an improved construction of the drill plough / By Erasmus Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as the leaf-buds above defcribed, though they are probably not fo eafily capable of tranfplantation into the bark of other trees by inocula- tion ; as, I believe, it is from the miftake of the gardeners in choofing flower-buds inflead of leaf-buds to inoculate with, that fo many buds die in this mode of propagation. Nor does the exiftence of many male and female parts in one flower deftroy its individuality any more than the number of paps of a fow or bitch, or the number of their cotyledons, each of which during geftation belongs to a feparate fetus. The flower-buds as well as the leaf-buds are properly biennial plants, as they are produced in the fummer of one year, and perifh in the autumn of the next; but as the new buds generated by leaf- buds continue to adhere to the parent, they are furnifhed with their numerous caudexes, which form a new bark over the old one, whereas the flower-buds generate feeds, which when mature fall upon the ground, and thus they die in the autumn without increafing the fize of the parent-tree by the adhefion of their progeny like the leaf-buds. 5. Thefe buds of plants, which are each an individual vegetable being, in many circumftances refemble individual animals ; but as ani- mal bodies are detached from the earth, and move from place to place in fearch of food, and take that food at confiderable intervals of time,, and prepare it for their nourifhment within their own bodies, after it is taken; it is evident, that they mud require many organs and powers, which are not neceflary to a flationary bud. As vegetables are im- moveably fixed to the foil, from whence they draw their aliment ready prepared, and this uniformly, and not at returning intervals; it fol- lows, that in examining their anatomy we are not to look for mufcles of locomotion, as lbgs and arms ; nor for organs to receive and pre- pare their aliment as a mouth, throat, flomach, and bowels, by which contrivances animals are enabled to live many hours without new fupplies of food from without. 6. The parts, which we may expedt to find in the anatomy of vegetables.