12 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



were probably attractive, but having in some way or other, 

 which we cannot at present explain, become self -fertile, 

 they have lost their attractive features and now no longer 

 need to be visited by insects. 



IV. 



A question which has often occurred to me, and which is 

 not easily answered, is as to the age of certain plants in 

 the garden some fruit trees for instance. It is such a 

 curious problem, and yet one so little thought of, that it 

 seems worth while raising it here. When we speak of the 

 age of a plant we usually mean its age from the time of 

 the germination of the seed, and this is so manifest a 

 statement that it may be wondered why the question 

 should be raised. But when I go to the nurseryman and 

 buy a "young" apple tree, how old is it? The stock may 

 be four or five years old, the graft may be one or two. 

 But the graft may have been taken from a tree twenty 

 years old, and that from another old one, and so on. Is 

 the "young" tree the age of the stock namely, five 

 years, or is it the age of the graft perhaps a hundred 

 years old? There is no doubt that, as far as the fruit- 

 bearing part is concerned, the plant is as old as the seed- 

 grown tree which furnished the original graft. This fact, 

 which is not sufficiently realised by cultivators, no doubt 

 helps to explain the weakness of many well-known varieties 

 of fruit trees in relation, for instance, to their power of 

 withstanding the attacks of certain insect and fungoid 

 pests. I think I am right in stating, though it is only a 

 matter of memory with me, that some years ago the well- 

 known Ribstoiie pippin apple all but died out, the grafts 

 probably representing a tree a century or two old, and 

 that our present grafts were the product of seed obtained 

 by cross-fertilising a Ribstone with some other strong 

 stock. I write this subject to correction, for I cannot 

 now refer to the authority for the statement. 



A historical instance of the same curious kind may be 

 remembered by some of my readers hailing from Edinburgh. 



