50 ADHESION 
Synspermy, or Union of the Seeds——Sceeds may be united 
together in various degrees, either by their intezuments,' 
or by their inner parts. Such union of the seeds, 
however, is of rare occurrence. It takes place nor- 
mally, to a slight extent, in certain cultivated forms 
of cotton, wherein the seeds are aggregated together 
into a reniform mass, whence the term kidney cotton. 
Union of the parts of the embryo is treated under 
another head (see Synophty). 
Adhesion between the axes of different plant.—Under this 
head may be classed the union that takes place between 
thestems, branches, orroots of differentplants of thesame 
species, and that which occurs between individuals of 
different species; the first is not very different in its 
nature from cohesion of the branches of the same 
plant (figs. 21, 22). It finds its parallel, under natural 
cir on waenigade among the lower cryptogams, in which 
it often happens that several individual plants, originally 
distinct, become inseparably blended together into one 
mass. In the gardening operations of inarching, and 
to some extent in budding, this adhesion of axis to axis 
occurs, the union taking place the more readily in pro- 
portion as the contact “between the younger growing 
portions of the two axes respectively is close. The 
huge size of some trees has been, in some cases, attri-- 
buted to the adnation of different stems. This is said 
to be the case with the famous plane trees of Bujuk- 
dere, near Constantinople, and in which nine trunks 
are more or less united together.” 
A similar anastomosis may take place in the roots. 
Lindley cites a case wherein two carrots, of the white 
Belgian and the red Surrey varieties respectiv ely, had 
grown so close to each other that each twisted half 
round the other, so that they ultimately became 
soldered together; the most singular thing with 
reference tos this union was, hee the rede carrot 
1 Nymphea lutea, AMsculus Hippocastanum, &e. See Moquin, ‘El. Ter. 
Veg.,’ p. 277. 2 ©. Martins, ‘Promenade Botanique,’ p. 8. 
