But if a tree can wait and devote a whole year to the development of its buds, which are clothed in a sheath of scales because of this waiting, there are a multitude of plants that have only a limited time at their disposal: they live only a year, and hence are called annuals. Such are the potato, carrot, pumpkin, and a great many more. In a few months or days they must hastily develop their buds. These, not having to pass through the winter, are never enveloped in protecting scales: they are naked buds. As soon as they appear they elongate, unfold their leaves, and become branches taking part in the work of the whole. Very soon, in the axils of their leaves, other buds make their appearance and behave like their predecessors; that is to say, they develop quickly into branches which in their turn produce other buds. And so on indefinitely until winter puts a stop to this scaffold of branches and kills the whole plant. Thus annuals ramify rapidly. In one year they produce several generations of branches implanted one on another, sometimes more, sometimes fewer, according to their species and their degree of vigor. Their buds, designed for immediate development, are always naked. On the contrary, those forms of vegetation that have a long life, such as trees, ramify slowly; they have only one generation of branches a year, and their buds, destined to live through the winter, are scaly. Certain examples of plant-life have both kinds of buds. Such, for instance, are the peach-tree and the grape-vine. At the end of winter the vine-shoot bears scaly buds lined with flock, and the peach branches scaly buds coated with varnish. Both belong to the class of dormant buds: they have slept all winter in their sheaths of fur and scales. In the spring they develop into branches according to the general rule; but at the same time there appear in the axils of the leaves other buds without any protecting covering, and these develop immediately into branches. Thus the grape-vine and the peach-tree beget two generations in one year: the first, the issue of the scaly buds that have endured the winter; the second, naked buds formed in the spring and developing very soon after their formation. The branches arising from these latter finally give birth to scaly buds, which sleep through the winter and reproduce the same order of things the following year.