Chap. XII. 



INHERITANCE. 



19 



being sown, produced seventeen trees, all of which had exactly the same 

 peculiar habit with the parent-tree. 47 



These facts, it might have been thought, would have been sufficient 

 to render it probable that a pendulous habit would in all cases be 

 strictly inherited. But let us look to the other side. Mr MacNab 48 

 sowed seeds of the weeping beech (Fagus sylvatica), but succeeded in raisins 

 only common beeches. Mr. Elvers, at my request, raised a number of 

 seedlings from three distinct varieties of weeping elm; and at least one 

 of the parent-trees was so situated that it could not have been crossed bv 

 any other elm; but none of the young trees, now about a foot or two in 

 height, show the least signs of weeping. Mr. Eivers formerly sowed above 

 twenty thousand seeds of the weeping ash (Fraxinus excelsior), and not a 

 single seedling was in the least degree pendulous : in Germany, M Borch- 

 meyer raised a thousand seedlings, with the same result. Nevertheless 

 Mr. Anderson, of the Chelsea Botanic Garden, by sowing seed from a weeping 

 ash which was found before the year 1780, in Cambridgeshire, raised several 

 Pendulous trees- Professor Henslow also informs me that some seedhngs 

 from a female weeping ash in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge were at 



fw tv f r + ° USj ^ afterwards becam e quite upright : it is probable 

 that this latter tree which transmits to a certain extent its pendulous 



«ttv • Ti fZ J a Md fr ° m the Same 0ri S inal Cambridgeshire 

 stock, whilst other weeping ashes may have had a distinct origin But 

 the crowning case, communicated to me by Mr. Eivers, which shows how 

 capricious is the inheritance of a pendulous habit, is that a variety of 

 another species of ash (F. lentiscifolia) which was formerly pendulous 



'now abou twenty years old, has long lost this habit, every shoot beTng 

 ^remarkably erect; but seedlings formerly raised from it were perfect^ 



prostrate, the stems not rising more than two inches above the ground » 

 Thus the weeping variety of the common ash, which has been extensively 

 Propagated by buds during a long period, did not, with Mr. Eivers 

 transmit its character to one seedling out of above twenty thousand- 

 whereas the weeping variety of a second species of ash, which could not! 

 whilst grown m the same garden, retain its own weeping character, trans- 

 mitted to its seedlings the pendulous habit in excess I 



istWino^W 8 f r tS f C ° Uld be given * Sh0 ™g ^w apparently capricious 

 berrv rT?7 ^^T MHhG SeedlingS from a ™ rie ^ of the Bar- 

 one thid of Z U) I ^ leaYGS inherited the same character ; ^ about 

 Z^mtt ^: ^ C ° PPer Beech ^ us ****») M purple 

 Zus wifh vX 7 'f u hUndred SeedlingS ° f a ™^J <* ^ drains 

 th y2 5 nZ ' b T yell ° W ^ : one "^fth of the seedlings of 



e t^rtie d Z US 71? V^ yeU ° W fruit ' came trae : 5 ° and W, all 

 the trees raised by my father from a yellow-berried holly (Hex aqui/ol^m), 



Shronshlre ' n fqV 1 "^^' i Mora ° f Loudon 's ' Gard. Magazine,' vol. x 



•X^s. 4 ^:^:^ 8 r™ m m ' i8o; afd toi - *■> im: 



48 Verlot on pit n Qq 5 ° These staton ents are taken from 



c 2 



