54 ADHESION. 



induced artificially ; thus, the employment of the root 

 as a stock, '* root-grafting," is now largely practised 



Fig. 24. Section through two adherent mushrooms, the upper one 

 inyerted. 



with some plants, as affording a quicker means of 

 propagation than by cuttings ; and a still more curious 

 illustration may be cited in the fact that it has also 

 been found possible to graft a scion^on the leaf in the 

 orange.^ 



Mr. Darwin, in his work on the '.Variation of Animals 

 and Plants,' vol. i, p. 395, alludes to the two following 

 remarkable cases of fusion: "The author of * Des 

 Jacinthes' (Amsterdam, 1768, p. 124) says that bulbs 

 of blue and red hyacinths may be cut in two, and 

 that they will grow together, and throw up a united 

 stem (and this Mr. Darwin has himself seen), with 

 flowers of the two colours on the opposite sides. But 

 the remarkable point is, that flowers are sometimes 

 produced with the two colours blended together.'* 

 In the second case related by Mr. Trail, about sixty 

 blue and white potatoes were cut in halves through 

 the eyes or buds, and the halves were then joined, 

 the other buds being destroyed. Union took place, 

 and some of the united tubers produced white, others 



Quoted from the ' Reviie Hortic' in ' Gard. Chron.,' 1866, p. 386. 



