,
the seed becomes coagulated in one point first, like the cicatricula of the
impregnated egg. See Botanic Garden, Part I. additional note 38. Now in
these simple products of nature, if the female contributed to produce the
new embryon equally with the male, there would probably have been some
visible similarity of parts for this purpose, besides those necessary for
the nidus and sustenance of the new progeny. Besides in many flowers the
males are more numerous than the females, or than the separate uterine
cells in their germs, which would shew, that the office of the male was at
least as important as that of the female; whereas if the female, besides
producing the egg or seed, was to produce an equal part of the embryon, the
office of reproduction would be unequally divided between them.

Add to this, that in the most simple kind of vegetable reproduction, I mean
the buds of trees, which are their viviparous offspring, the leaf is
evidently the parent of the bud, which rises in its bosom, according to the
observation of Linnaeus. This leaf consists of absorbent vessels, and
pulmonary ones, to obtain its nutriment, and to impregnate it with oxygene.
This simple piece of living organization is also furnished with a power of
reproduction; and as the new offspring is thus supported adhering to its
father, it needs no mother to supply it with a nidus, and nutriment, and
oxygenation; and hence no female leaf has existence.

I conceive that the vessels between the bud and the leaf communicate or
inosculate; and that the bud is thus served with vegetable blood, that is,
with both nutriment and oxygenation, till the death of the parent-leaf in
autumn. And in this respect it differs from the fetus of viviparous
animals. Secondly, that then the bark-vessels belonging to the dead-leaf,
and in which I suppose a kind of manna to have been deposited, become now
the placental vessels, if they may be so called, of the new bud. From the
vernal sap thus produced of one sugar-maple-tree in New-York and in
Pennsylvania, five or six pounds of good sugar may be made annually without
destroying the tree. Account of maple-sugar by B. Rushes. London, Phillips.
(See Botanic Garden, Part I. additional note on vegetable placentation.)

These vessels, when the warmth of the vernal sun hatches the young bud,
serve it with a saccharine nutriment, till it acquires leaves of its own,
and shoots a new system of absorbents down the bark and root of the