170 



RAISING PLANTS FROM CUITINGS. 



addition of salt upon it, I fully believe, with 

 some otlier of your correspondents, will pre- 

 vent the mildew. And if any so simple pro- 

 position can avail, I shall try it heavily and 



broadly on a few plum trees, to see whether 

 it will stagger the instinct of the curculio ! 

 Lewis F. Allen. 



Black Rock. August, 1850. 



ON RAISING PLANTS PROM CUTTINGS.' 



BY M. NEUMANN, PARIS. 



XIII. Cuttings op Leaves. — A single 

 leaf cut near the stem and planted, is suffi- 

 cient, in some plants, to produce new indi- 

 viduals. The leaves intended for this opera- 

 tion ought not to be pulled off the stem ; 

 thei'e is no need of taking away the eye which 

 shows itself at their axil ; in this method of 

 striking by cuttings it is not the eye which 

 devclopes itself, as many people imagine ; 

 the effect which takes 

 place is similar to that 

 produced when cuttings 

 are struck from the branch '^ 

 of Abies (see fig. 16.) It 

 is upon the cluster of 

 small bulblets which form 

 on certain parts of the 



leaf, that the shoot shows 

 itself. Fig. 



Fig. 41 indicates at 

 what place we may cut 

 the leaf without hurting 

 the plant ; the leaf being 

 placed in the earth forms 

 a callus at its base, fig. 

 42, whence the roots, and riar. xi.—cuuinss of Uaves 



,1 i' . of jyieophrasla latifolia. 



consequently more shoots 

 spring up. 



Leaves intended for cuttings should be 

 taken about the middle of a branch ; the re- 

 sult is more certain than if we chose the lower 

 leaves. Gloxinia, Bryophyllum, Lilies, &c., 

 multiply well by such cuttings. 



If we wish to get on very quickly, the 

 midrib on the lower face of the leaf may be 

 broken in several places, without injuring the 

 limb, and so lightly that the broken places 

 can scarcely be distinguished ; the lower face 

 of the leaf is then placed on the earth of a 

 . pot. Soon at each fracture a little callus de- 

 velopes itself, which gives rise to roots, as is 

 seen in fig. 43. 



Some leaves, when employed as cuttings, 

 send out roots and buds at each incision, 

 as, for example, in 

 Hemionitis palmata, /--^ 

 Bryophyllum, &c. — 

 Fig. 44 shows how 



this effect is pro- p^g.^s.-Leaf of Gloxinia, pre- 

 duced. pared as a cutting. 



Cuttings of leaves are often a long time 

 before they show any sign of succeeding ; the 

 care which they require is in consequence of 

 their delicate nature ; most especially, must 

 attention be paid' to burying the end of the 

 petiole, or the base of the leaf. "When their 

 buds are strong enough they may be accus- 

 tomed, by degrees, to the free air of the 

 green-house, in which they are to remain, 

 then treating them like cuttings from branches. 



Having succeeded with the leaves, of which 

 I have just spoken, I tried, in 1839, to mul- 

 tiply Theophrasta latifolia with its leaves cut 

 in two, with which I made two cuttings ; 



Fig. 44. — Leaf of Hemionitis palt)iata, used as a cutting. 



these portions took root and developed buds, 

 as is seen in fig. 43. This experiment evi- 

 dently proves that some plants may be repro- 

 duced by cuttings of the midrib of their 

 leaves. The primitive bud, as I have re- 

 marked, rises from the callus above the root 

 which first shows itself, and about l-16th of 



* Cominued from page 65. 



