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Bud

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the name of bodies of various form and structure, which develop upon of plants, and contain the rudiments , branches, stems future organs, as leaves, and organs of fructification. in their Upon exogenous plants they are commencement cellular prolongations which force from the medullary rays, bark. In general, their way through the each year in a single bud is developed is one the axil of each leaf, and there called a terterminating the branch the plant durminal bud. The life of the bud as ing winter is stored up in vital ac- 1 in an embryo, and it is by its spring the tion that on the return of stimulated flow of sap from the roots is dis- . Buds are to renewed activity tinguished into leaf buds and flower are produced in the buds. The latter leaves or axil of leaves called floral is bracts. The terminal bud of a branch usually a flower bud, and as cultivation buds in is capable of producing flower a place of leaf buds, the one is probably the other. modification of BUDÆUS (bū-dē'us), (the Latinized French form of GUILLAUME BUDÉ), a in 1467. His scholar; born in Paris , philosophy, and works on philology extensive learnjurisprudence display the "De ing, the two best known being " (1514), which Asse et Partibus ejus investigation contains a very thorough coins, and the "Commentarii into ancient Linguæ Græcæ" (1519), the basis of all in this department. subsequent works not only in His abilities were manifested in public business. Louis literature, but him to Rome, and XII. twice sent him in several Francis I. also employed suggestion, negotiations. At Budæus' France Francis founded the Collège de , the and the library at Fontainebleau Nationale, and basis of the Bibliothèque persuaded to refrain from prowas also hibiting printing, which the bigoted 1533. He was Sorbonne had advised in at the time of his death, royal librarian Aug. 23, 1540.

What Has Changed in the Last Century

As a description, Collier's 1921 account still reads well: buds are compressed embryonic shoots, borne terminally or in leaf axils, dormant through winter and roused when sap flows in spring. What was missing was the machinery. From the late 1920s the plant hormone auxin was isolated and shown to be the reason a terminal bud holds the buds below it in check "apical dominance" and why pinching out a tip makes a plant bush; dormancy is now understood as a chilling-hours requirement regulated by hormones such as abscisic acid, which is why orchardists count winter cold. Collier's cautious guess that a flower bud "is probably the modification of the other" turned out to be right: floral meristems are converted shoot meristems, and since the 1990s the genes that flip the switch, including FLOWERING LOCUS T and LEAFY, have been named.

Written for this edition, 2026.