PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 41 



girdling, the paper was taken off and the specimen examined. 

 The wood appeared dead and brown, and was covered with a 

 mucilaginous fluid which appeared to have come from- above. 

 There was no sign of growth below the girdle, but above it 

 the stem was decidedly enlarged, and a callous had descended 

 a quarter of an inch and developed upon itself a bud, as if 

 about to strike out for air and light. No bleeding from the 

 bark was observed in any case worthy of mention, the nearest 

 approach to it being in the flow of turpentine from the bark 

 and sap-wood of the the white pine. 



Among the specimens of natural grafting obtained during 

 the past year, perhaps the most remarkable was a fine bunch 

 of mistletoe, growing as a parasite upon a branch of oak. 

 This was kindly procured for the College museum by Prof. 

 J. W. Mallet, LL.D., of the University of Virginia. The 

 shrub is an evergreen, and its roots penetrate the bark and 

 sap-wood of the tree on which it feeds, appropriating the 

 crude sap and forming a wood of a totally different sort from 

 that of its support, and having an ash peculiar to itself. In 

 fact, the several species on which it is produced seem to serve 

 merely as so many different soils on which it can thrive. As 

 the oak-branch was dead beyond the mistletoe, it would seem 

 to have been injured by the abstraction of its sap and its 

 exhalation from the foliage of the parasite. The singular 

 mode in which the union is formed will be understood by an 

 examination of figure 37. 



A specimen of red maple was brought to the College by 

 Mr. Austin Eastman, of Amherst, which exhibited a single 

 trunk with one heart, formed by the natural union of two 

 shoots, which were nearly three feet apart, and were united 

 about six feet from the ground. The main trunk was eight 

 inches in diameter. 



Another specimen, found in Pelham, shows two white pine 

 trunks, joined like the Siamese twins, at about four feet from 

 the ground. This, when sawed open vertically, showed how 

 the union had been effected. A branch of one had lodged 

 in the angle made by a branch of the other with its parent 

 trunk. As the tree grew, they were fastened together, and, 

 under the pressure thus caused, the bark was flattened until 

 it almost disappeared, and soon the new wood formed over 



