PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. PART II. 



in various places, till the whole forms a rude network 

 upon the trunk of the tree up which it has climbed. 

 Although it is so easy for two parts of different in- 

 dividuals of the same species to graft together, it 

 requires great care and precaution to secure such a 

 union between two different species. In dicotyledonous 

 plants the two alburnums and the two libers must be 

 placed in contact, and then the line of junction between 

 the two cambiums will also be complete and the newly 

 formed tissues will readily unite. De Candolle thinks it 

 likely, in contradiction to the common opinion, that the 

 ascending sap being attracted by the graft will first 

 produce a union between the two alburnums, and that 

 the descending sap then effects the union of the two 

 libers. The chief requisite in this operation is the 

 near relationship of the two species ; and it never suc- 

 ceeds excepting between such as are of the same genus 

 or at least between allied genera of the same family. 

 The ancients were of a very different opinion, and con- 

 sidered it possible to graft any two plants together. 

 Thus Virgil : 



" Et stcriles platani malos gesserc valentw, 

 Cattaiies* fagos, ornutque incanuit albo 

 Flore Tyri, glandemque sues Iregere sub ulmis." 



Pliny has recorded a marvellous instance of a grafted 

 tree bearing a variety of different fruits, which he tells 

 us he himself saw. " Tot modis insitam arborem 

 vidimus, omni genere pomorum ornustum : alio ramo 

 nucibus, alio baccis, aliunde vite, ficis, piris, punicis, 

 malorumque generibus. Sed huic brevis fuit vita." * 



As we must not doubt that Pliny saw the specimen 

 to which he here so pointedly alludes, we cannot other- 

 wise explain the fact, than by supposing him to have 

 been imposed upon by a practice which it is said is still 

 resorted to in Italy, for amusement or deceit. The 

 French have termed it the " (Jreffe des Charlatans." 

 It consists in cutting down a tree, as the orange, to 



Lib. xvii. ch. 17. sect. 20. 



