(85.) Flower Buds. — Numerous examples are perpetually occurring, in which the attentive observer of nature may catch a glimpse of the mysterious connection which subsists between the organs of nutrition and reproduction, in plants. Instances continually present themselves, of flowers whose separate portions are singularly characterised, by possessing an intermediate condition, partly leaf-like, and partly like those variously coloured appendages which constitute the blossom. By an accurate examination of these and other “monstrosities” as all deviations from the ordinary conditions of vegetation are termed, it has been clearly ascertained, that the organs of reproduction and nutrition are merely modifications of some one common germ, which may be developed according to circumstances, either in the form of a flower-bud, or of a leaf-bud. In the latter case we have shown, how this body becomes a branch and leaves; and we have now to explain the conditions and characters of those several organs which are developed from the flower-bud, and collectively termed the “inflorescence.” It would be equally erroneous for us to call the flowerbud a metamorphosed state of the leaf-bud, as to say the leaf-bud was an altered condition of the flower-bud; and we are nearer the truth, when we consider each of them to be a peculiar modification of the same kind of germ, adapted in the one case to perform the functions of nutrition, and in the other, those of reproduction. Flower-buds ought consequently to make their appearance on similar parts of the stem and branches with the leaf-buds, viz.