852 FRUITS. Chap. X. 



CHAPTER X. 

 plants continued — fruits — ornamental trees — flowers. 



FRUITS — GRAPES — VARY IN ODD AND TRIFLING PARTICULARS. MUL- 

 BERRY — THE ORANGE GROUP — SINGULAR RESULTS FROM CROSSING. 



PEACH AND NECTARINE — BUD VARIATION — ANALOGOUS VARIATION 



RELATION TO THE ALMOND. APKICOT. PLUMS — VARIATION IN 



THEIR STONES. CHERRIES — SINGULAR VARIETIES OF. APPLE. 



PEAR. STRAWBERRY — INTERBLENDING OF THE ORIGINAL FORMS. 



GOOSEBERRY — STEADY INCREASE IN SIZE OF THE FRUIT — VARIETIES OF. 

 WALNUT. NUT. CUCURBITACEOUS PLANTS — WONDERFUL VARIA- 

 TION OF. 



ORNAMENTAL TREES — their variation in degree and kind — 



ASH-TREE — SCOTCH-FIR — HAWTHORN. 

 FLOWERS — MULTIPLE ORIGIN OF MANY KINDS — VARIATION IN CONSTITU- 

 TIONAL PECULIARITIES — KIND OF VARIATION. ROSES — SEVERAL SPECIES 



CULTIVATED. PANSY. DAHLIA. HYACINTH — HISTORY AND 



VARIATION OF. 



The Vine (Vitis vinifera). — The best authorities consider all our 

 grapes as the descendants of one species which now 7 grows wild in 

 western Asia, which grew wild during the Bronze age in Italy, 1 and 

 which has recently been found fossil in a tufaceons deposit in the 

 south of France. 2 Some authors, however, entertain much doubt 

 about the single parentage of our cultivated varieties, owing to the 

 number of semi- wild forms found in Southern Europe, especially as 

 described by Clemente 3 in a forest in Spain; but as the grape sows 

 itself freely in Southern Europe, and as several of the chief kinds 

 transmit their characters by seed, 4 whilst others are extremely 

 variable, the existence of many different escaped forms could hardly 

 fail to occur in countries where this plant has been cultivated from 

 the remotest antiquity. That the vine varies much when propagated 

 by seed, we may infer from the largely increased number of varieties 

 since the earlier historical records. New hot-house varieties are 



1 Heer, ' Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten,' Saporta on the ' Tertiary Plants of 

 1866, s. 28. France.' 



2 Alph. De Candolle, ' Geograph. 3 Godron, ' De l'Espece,' torn. ii. p. 

 Bot.,' p. 872; Dr. A. Targioni- 100. 



Tozzetti, in ' Jour. Hort. Soc.,' vol ix. 4 See an account of M. Yibert's ex- 



p. 133. For the fossil vine found by periments, by Alex. Jordan, in ' Mem. 



Dr. G. Planchon, see 'Nat. Hist. de l'Acad. de Lyon,' torn. ii. 1852, p. 



Review,' 1865, April, p. 224. See 108. 

 also the valuable works of M. de 



