tree,
just as the farinaceous or oily matter in seeds, and the saccharine matter
in fruits, serve their embryons with nutriment, till they acquire leaves
and roots. This analogy is as forceable in so obscure a subject, as it is
curious, and may in large buds, as of the horse-chesnut, be almost seen by
the naked eye; if with a penknife the remaining rudiment of the last year's
leaf, and of the new bud in its bosom, be cut away slice by slice. The
seven ribs of the last year's leaf will be seen to have arisen from the
pith in seven distinct points making a curve; and the new bud to have been
produced in their centre, and to have pierced the alburnum and cortex, and
grown without the assistance of a mother. A similar process may be seen on
dissecting a tulip-root in winter; the leaves, which inclosed the last
year's flower-stalk, were not necessary for the flower; but each of these
was the father of a new bud, which may be now found at its base; and which,
as it adheres to the parent, required no mother.

This paternal offspring of vegetables, I mean their buds and bulbs, is
attended with a very curious circumstance; and that is, that they exactly
resemble their parents, as is observable in grafting fruit-trees, and in
propagating flower-roots; whereas the seminal offspring of plants, being
supplied with nutriment by the mother, is liable to perpetual variation.
Thus also in the vegetable class dioicia, where the male flowers are
produced on one tree, and the female ones on another; the buds of the male
trees uniformly produce either male flowers, or other buds similar to
themselves; and the buds of the female trees produce either female flowers,
or other buds similar to themselves; whereas the seeds of these trees
produce either male or female plants. From this analogy of the production
of vegetable buds without a mother, I contend that the mother does not
contribute to the formation of the living ens in animal generation, but is
necessary only for supplying its nutriment and oxygenation.

There is another vegetable fact published by M. Koelreuter, which he calls
"a complete metamorphosis of one natural species of plants into another,"
which shews, that in seeds as well as in buds, the embryon proceeds from
the male parent, though the form of the subsequent mature plant is in part
dependant on the female. M. Koelreuter impregnated a stigma of the
nicotiana rustica with the farina of the nicotiana paniculata, and obtained