72 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



that are entirely of the nankeen color, without white ; 

 then, again, pure white with no nankeen, and on one ahoot 

 the flowers came of a light pink or blush shade. Now 

 had Prof. Caspary a grafted plant of ^^ La Nankin " play- 

 ing these freaks, he no doubt would have concluded that 

 it was the influence of the graft on the stock. There are 

 other instances in grafting where an amalgamation of 

 individualities aiyparently occurs. These cases are famil- 

 iar to all horticulturists of much experience, and are also 

 alluded to by Darwin in the work above referred to. He 

 gives a number of instances where the variegated Ole- 

 ander grafted on the j^lain-leaved variety as a stock, 

 imparts the variegation to the stock, or where a yellow- 

 leaved ash tree, grafted on the common green-leaved 

 variety, produced a blotched or variegated variety. That 

 most of the variegation in the foliage of plants is due 

 to disease, or at least some disturbance of the regular 

 functions of the sap, there is but little doubt, and it is 

 therefore but an accidental condition of the individual. 

 Where a variegated plant is budded or grafted upon a 

 healthy subject, the disease is transmitted from the un- 

 healthy bud or graft to the healthy stock in a manner 

 somewhat analogous to inoculation of smallpox virus in 

 man. The character or constitution of the individual is 

 in no way affected in the one case more than in the other. 

 All who have been extensively engaged in the growing of 

 plants, either in the greenhouse or in the open field, 

 know that, when variegated kinds of almost any variety 

 of woody plants are grafted on those having plain leaves, 

 the variegation will be transferred to the plain-leaved 

 stock, but the variegation only; it is changed in no other 

 respect. The most common examples of this are the 

 variegated Ahiitilon, variegated AUheas, or variegated 

 Ivies, which almost invariably transmit the '^diseased" 

 foliage to the healthy stock; but there is never any change 

 made in the coloring of the flower nor in the shape of 



