Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 



don (Arboret. Brit.), the weeping-willow was sent to England 

 in 1730, by a French merchant named Vernon. It was planted 

 in Twickenham Park, whence it spread rapidly over England and 

 the continent. The tree, from which the first slips that were 

 brought to Europe were taken, was most probably a cultivated 

 one itself, raised from a slip. However this may be, could the 

 descent of all our weeping-willows be traced, it would undoubt- 

 edly lead us back to a willow, a female willow, grown in its na- 

 tive country from a seed. And so, on this account, we are to 

 regard all the beautiful weeping- willows of our gardens and our 

 cemeteries— and surely they are perfect trees — not as individual 

 stocks, but as the disjecta membra of a primary trunk, now hid- 

 den in mythical darkness ! In other cases this primary trunk 

 is known with perfect certainty. It can be proved by history 

 that many hybrids and varieties have been produced in one 

 single exemplar; though they now ornament our gardens far 

 and wide, having increased by means of slips, as they do not 

 bear seeds. This was the case of the famous Cytisus Adami, 

 which sprung, shortly before the year 1825, from the mingUng 

 of C. purpureus and C. Laburnum. The single parent-stock, 

 preserved in the garden of the celebrated Adam in Paris, has 

 long since disappeared ; but its scions and scions' scions have 

 grown up into fine trees in half the gardens of Europe*. In 

 the view just stated, they all form but one individual ! To sup- 

 port such a view, its partisans adduce the fact of certain indi- 

 vidual particularities being preserved (in dioecious plants espe- 

 cially the gender), when propagated by slips. In general this is 

 true, and for practical gardening, e. g. for the cultivation of the 

 finer kinds of fruit, of the greatest importance ; but exceptions 

 are not rare ; among which the well-known re-division of Cytisus 

 Adami into its two primary stocks is one of the most striking 

 and remarkable. In our gardens the rule is, that from slips the 

 weeping-willow produces female trees ; still some exceptions 

 may be noted here. Napoleon's grave in St. Helena is shaded 

 by a weeping- willow, which has become the subject of scientific 

 discussions. It was supposed to belong to a species {Salix 

 Napoleonis) indigenous to that island ; but Loudon's exhaustive 

 researches show that it is descended from our weeping-willows, 

 one of which was carried from England to St. Helena in 1810. 

 Branches of this Salix Napoleonis were brought back to England, 

 and to the astonishment of botanists they bore male flowers. 

 Since up to that time no male weeping-willows had been seen in 

 England, a change of gender must have been produced through 



* Cf. Verjiingung, pp. 33/ and xi. In another place I shall communi- 

 cate the history of this hybrid, which has since been investigated. 



