X. "On wings of flame, ETHEREAL VIRGINS! sweep O'er Earth's fair bosom, and complacent deep; Where dwell my vegetative realms benumb'd, 460 In buds imprison'd, or in bulbs intomb'd, Pervade, PELLUCID FORMS! their cold retreat, Ray from bright urns your viewless floods of _heat_; From earth's deep wastes _electric_ torrents pour, Or shed from heaven the scintillating shower; 465 Pierce the dull root, relax its fibre-trains, Thaw the thick blood, which lingers in its veins; Melt with warm breath the fragrant gums, that bind The expanding foliage in its scaly rind; And as in air the laughing leaflets play, 470 And turn their shining bosoms to the ray, NYMPHS! with sweet smile each opening glower invite, And on its damask eyelids pour the _light_. [_In buds imprison'd_. l. 460. The buds and bulbs of plants constitute what is termed by Linneus the Hybernaculum, or winter cradle of the embryon vegetable. The buds arise from the bark on the branches of trees, and the bulbs from the caudex of bulbous-rooted plants, or the part from which the fibres of the root are produced, they are defended from too much moisture, and from frosts, and from the depredations of insects by various contrivances, as by scales, hairs, resinous varnishes, and by acrid rinds. The buds of trees are of two kinds, either flower-buds or leaf buds; the former of these produce their seeds and die; the latter produce other leaf buds or flower buds and die. So that all the buds of trees may be considered as annual plants, having their embryon produced during the preceeding summer. The same seems to happen with respect to bulbs; thus a tulip produces annually one flower-bearing bulb, sometimes two, and several leaf-bearing bulbs; and then the old root perishes. Next year the flower-bearing bulb produces seeds and other bulbs and perishes; while the leaf-bearing bulb, producing other bulbs only, perishes likewise; these circumstances establish a strict analogy between bulbs and buds. See additional notes, No. XIV.] [_Viewless floods of heat_. l. 462. The fluid matter of heat, or Calorique, in which all bodies are immersed, is as necessary to vegetable as to animal existence. It is not yet determinable whether heat and light be different materials, or modifications of the same materials, as they have some properties in common. They appear to be both of them equally necessary to vegetable health, since without light green vegetables become first yellow, that is, they lose the blue colour, which contributed to produce the green; and afterwards they also lose the yellow and become white; as is seen in cellery blanched or etiolated for the table by excluding the light from it.