MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF THE STOCK AND GRAFT. 131 



VAKIEGATION. 



Although variegation is unquestionably a disease, its transfer by means 

 of grafting has attracted so much attention that it may be treated by 

 itself. Bradley, as long ago as 1727, called variegation a "distemper" 

 which may be " communicated to every plant of the same tribe by 

 inoculating only a single bud." 



The following remarks are made by F. W. Burbidge on this subject: 1 

 " Variegation can in many cases be communicated to a green-leaved plant 

 by budding or grafting it with variegated scions from the same or allied 

 species. In the case of abutilons this is a well-known fact, and soon after 

 Messrs. Veitch introduced the vermilion-flowered, green-leaved A. Dar- 

 ivini, a variegated form was artificially produced on the continent by bud- 

 ding it with scions from the golden blotched A. Thompsoni. This prac- 

 tice has also succeeded with the ash, sweet chestnut, laburnum, pelargon- 

 ium, common chestnut, maple, jasmine, oleander and passion flower 

 ' ' ' " The first record that I have been able to discover of this phase 

 of vegetative hybridism-transmission of variegation to a green-leaved 

 stock by grafting — is in Blair's " Botanik Essays" 1720, page 386; and 

 two years afterward a Mr. Fairchild observed that a green-leaved passion 

 flower, which had been budded with a scion from a variety with golden- 

 blotched leaves, became in part variegated." 



The following appears in The Garden, Volume VII, 1875, page 258: 

 " A curious fact in connection with the aucuba-leaved variety of Passi- 

 flora quadrangidaris has been made known by Mr. Lemoine of Nancy. 

 Grafted upon Abutilon Thompsoni and Passiflora Tmperatrice Eugenie, 

 a scion of this plant has communicated its variegation to both stocks, but 

 only to such shoots as have pushed out above the spot where the graft was 

 inserted." A scion of Tacsonia Buchanani was inserted in the same 

 variegated Passiflora quadrangidaris and this graft has now commenced 

 to take up the variegation of the stock. 



George W. Cambell of Ohio states" that he grafted Abutilon Mesopo- 

 tamicum variegatum on Abutilon Boule de Neige and obtained variegated 

 shoots on the stock below the graft. Marshall P. Wilder stated before 

 the Massachusetts Horticultural society that he had never succeeded in 

 transferring variegation in abutilons by budding or grafting. 



Josiah Hoopes in the proceedings of the American Pomological society 

 for 1873, page 130, says: " During the past season a mountain ash, upon 

 which was budded a variety with variegated leaves, commenced to push 

 forth young shoots from the main body of the tree below the point where 

 the bud was inserted. In every case these had variegated leaves. " 



George Syme, in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1877, page 246, states that 

 in 1000 Acer Negundos \_Negundo Aceroides,] budded with the variety 

 variegatum, twenty produced variegated shoots from the stock, some of 

 them below, others above the insertion of the bud. 



In the Gardeners' Chronicle, for 1871, page 1291, it is stated that in the 

 nursery of William Paul at Waltham Cross a variegated variety of 

 Castanea vesca was grafted, standard high, on a tree of the ordinary 

 green-leaved form. The graft took, but afterward died, and subsequently 

 a young shoot with well-marked variegation on its leaves broke out from 

 near the base of the stem. The variegation was of a creamy white color 



i The Garden, Vol. X. 1876, page 350. 



2 Report Michigan Pomological Society, 1877, page 451. 



