LIVING STUMPS OF TREES 



615 



ble for the com- 

 mencement of the 

 overgrowth, but 

 that it is subse- 

 quently stimulated 

 by the chlorophyll 

 present in the cor- 

 tex of the callus. 



Professor Jep- 

 son, a California 

 authority, referring 

 in "Trees of Cali- 

 fornia" (1909, p. 



33. Fig- 2 9) to the 

 presence of these 

 stumps in Cali- 

 fornia, expresses 

 the opinion that the 

 phenomenon is un- 

 doubtedly due to natural grafting of roots. Professor 

 H. S. Newins, of the Oregon Agricultural College, in the 

 Proceedings of the Society of American Foresters for 



DOUGLAS FIR 



Remarkable manner in which stumps of the Douglas fir tree heal over when their roots are 

 grafted to standing trees in the vicinity. After this cap was removed a renewed healing took 

 place, as seen in the small piece in the center of this photograph. Another healing is now 

 occurring in the cap from which the small piece was cut. 



a number of scat- 

 tered Douglas fir 

 trees of large size 

 and well branched 

 through growth in 

 the open. About 

 fifty feet away 

 from one of . the 

 largest stood a 

 group of nine small 

 Douglas fir stumps 

 completely capped 

 over. No indica- 

 tion of root graft 

 between the stumps 

 and the big tree 

 was to be seen. 

 Chinese felling 

 timber in the 



SCRUB PINE 



This shows how the three trees are welded together in a natural graft 

 of the roots and base of stems. Union of roots does not in this species 

 (pinus contorta) enable a tree possessing foliage to keep the stumps of 

 another alive by means of root graft. 



October, 1916, cites a number of cases in which he 

 proved by actual excavation that living stumps which 

 were apparently isolated were as a matter of fact con- 

 nected by natural root grafts with standing trees. 



I have made a number of such excavations and have 

 never been able to find an instance in which uncovering 

 all the roots did not disclose root unions, direct or 

 indirect. One example of the latter was particularly note- 

 worthy. On Langford Plains, near Victoria, there were 



vicinity for firewood cut down the big tree, and as soon 

 as they did so the vitality in the stumps ceased. I em- 

 ployed the Chinese to dig up the intervening ground 

 between the tree and stumps and then the fact was dis- 

 closed that the spreading roots of the big tree, at a depth 

 of two feet below the surface of the ground and at a 

 distance from the tree of fifty feet, had formed a union 

 with the tap roots of one or two of the group of stumps. 

 These stumps, so united with the underlying root from 

 the big tree, were in turn root grafted with the others 



GRAND FIR 



In the foreground are seen the living roots of a stump which has 

 decayed away. The trunk of the big tree from which the live roots 

 obtain their vitality through root graft is seen at the back of the 

 photograph. These are Grand fir {Abies grandis). 



of the group further away. It was, therefore, apparent 

 that the wood forming material from the foliage of the 

 big tree was transmitted by means of the root graft 

 directly to some of the stumps, that they passed it on to 



