56 ADHESION. 
softer wood than the former, yet the branch of the 
harder wooded tree was flattened, as if subjected to 
great pressure.': It is possible that some of the 
cases similar to those spoken of by Columella, Virgil,” 
and other classical writers, may have originated in the 
accidental admission of seeds into the crevices of trees; 
in time the seeds grew, and as they did so, the young 
plants contracted an adhesion to the supporting tree. 
Some of the mstances recorded by classical writers 
may be attributed to intentional or accidental fallacy, 
as in the so-called ‘‘ greffe des charlatans’ of more 
modern days. 
Adhesion of the roots of different species has been 
effected artificially, as between the carrot and the beet 
root, while Dr. Maclean succeeded in engrafting, on a 
red beet, a scion of the white Silesian variety of the 
same species. In all these cases, even in the most 
successful grafts, the amount of adhesion is very slight ; 
the union in no degree warrants the term fusion, “it is 
little but simple contact of similar tissues, while new 
erowing matter is formed all round the cut surfaces, 
so that the latter become gradually imbedded in the 
newly formed matter. 
Synophty or adhesion of the embryo—l'his often occurs 
partially in the embryo plants of the common mistleto 
(Viscum), but 1s not of common occurrence in other 
plants, even in such cases as the orange (Citrus), the 
Cycadee, Conifere, &c., where there is frequently more 
than one embryo in the seed. Alphonse De Candolle 
has described and figured an instance of the kind in 
Huphorbia helioscopia, wherein two embryo plants were 
completely grafted together throughout the whole length 
! An instance of this kind is cited in Dr. Robson’s memoir of the late 
Charles Waterton, from which it appears that two trees, a spruce fir 
and an elm, were originally planted side by side, and had been annually 
twisted round each other, so that they had in places grown one into 
the other, with the result of stunting the growth of both trees, thus 
illustrating, according to the opinion of the eccentric naturalist above 
cited, the incongruous union of Church and State! 
Pasee Daubeny, ‘Lectures on Roman Husbandry,’ p. 156. 
