270 



PROPAGATION BY LEAVES. 



with a bell-glass, placing the pot on a hot-bed. In eighteen days, callosities 

 appeared at the base of the peduncles, which soon became roots, and a few 

 days afterwards little protuberances appeared on the summits of the fruit, 

 which, at the end of two months, became shoots. The same result took 

 place in the case of the fruits of Opuntia polyanthos, and Mammillaria 

 simplex. {Cours de Culture^ <^c., tome 11.^ p. 551.) Some or the whole 

 of the parts of the flower are frequently metamorphosed into leaves, and 

 even shoots, in warm, moist seasons, and from these there can be no doubt 

 plants could, in many cases, be raised by taking them off and treating them as 

 cuttings. 



6X7. The essence of all the different modes of forming plants from cuttings 

 may thus be stated. Wherever a joint of the ripened wood of a plant, or of 

 the unripened wood, with a leaf or leaves, can be procured, it is probable 

 that a rooted plant may be produced by proper treatment ; that in many 

 cases, especially where the leaves are large, a bud with a leaf attached will 



produce a plant ; that in a number of cases 

 plants may be produced from leaves alone, 

 and that in some cases they may be even pro- 

 duced from parts of leaves, from the calyxes, 

 and other parts of flowers, and from imma- 

 ture fruits. That to render more certain the 

 rooting of a cutting or a bud, or even a leaf, 

 it is advisable partially to separate it from the 

 parent plant some days, weeks, or, in some 

 cases, months, before it is entirely taken off, 

 by cutting a shoot half through immediately 

 Fig. 180. Wedges inserted above and be- "^der a joint or leaf, and keeping the wound 

 low buds to check the flow of the sap, opcu, if ueccssary, witli a wcdgc, as in fig. 180, 

 and excite them to produce shoots. by ringing Under each bud, as in fig. 



181, c. That, in regard to soil, the safe mode is to plant in pure sand, witli 

 a layer of the soil in which the plant delights below ; and, in regard to light, 

 that the cuttings should in all cases, when they are 

 under glass, be placed as close to it as possible. 

 Finally, that in regard to woody plants, those with 

 the leaves on, and the wood half-matured at the 

 lower end of the shoot, will root more readilj'' than 

 shoots of ripened wood without the leaves. Camellia 

 shoots of the season, put in in July or August, will 

 be rooted by December, while those not put in till 

 September, will not root till the following spring. 

 That the rooting of cuttings with the leaves on de- 

 pends very much on the action of light, is proved 

 by the following experiment, made b}'- M. Caie : — 

 A pot of cuttings of JVTonsoa incisifolia was placed 

 in a close pit, at two feet from the glass ; another Fig. i8i. a shoot ringed toaceu. 

 at two feet three inches; and a third at two feet '""'"'^ "-^'^'^ 



1 rryi , .1 buds,and prepare them for throw- 



SIX mches. The CUttmgS m the first pot were rooted, roots when they are taken 



but very little advanced in growth ; those in the off and planted. 

 second were elongated in the tops, but had only callosities at the lower 

 ends of the cuttings ; and those of the third pot were grown as high or 

 higher than those of the second, but without either callosities or roots. 

 {Gard. Chron. vol. i., p. 782.) 



