Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.
Scent - exhalation, which, rather than the humidity of water, causes the tree to germinate. Hardly does it feel the vapour or scent of the water when it buds. In the antithesis to man the tree is personified, and volition is poetically ascribed to it.
Like a plant - `as if newly planted' (Umbreit). Not as if trees and plants were a different species.