79 
On some Natural Grafts between Indigenous Trees. 
In 1903, Mr. E. Chappelow, of George's River, near Oatley, Sydney, brought 
to me a fragment of wood bearing a rough and a smooth bark. On following the 
matter up, he brought to me a remarkable specimen. It is a composite log of 
timber showing the smooth bark and the red wood of White Gum (Eucalyptus 
hcemastoma Sm., var. micrantha Benth.) and the fibrous bark and pale-brown wood 
of Stringybark (E. capitellata, Sm.). 
The facts concerning the log are these ; they were obtained by Mr. J. L. 
Boorman, Collector, Botanic Gardens, on my behalf : " There was originally a 
Stringybark tree, hollow with age, and the top had disappeared. From near the 
bottom a sucker of the old tree had sprung up, inside the tree. Inside, 
presumably springing from a stray seed, a young White Gum had also grown. So 
that there were two young treas, a Stringybark and a White Gum, the old 
Stringybark serving as a "pot." In process of time the young trees became 
"pot-bound," and the two young trees became squeezed together and finally fused." 
Mr. C. T. Musson, of the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, Richmond, 
published in the College Journal of the 18th January, 1901, an account of a natural 
graft to be seen on the farm. Out of a tree of Eucalyptus tereticornis Sm., there 
is growing a smaller tree of Angophora intermedia (Rough-barked Apple). This 
natural graft is in rather a bad way, and will apparently not live long. Mr. Musson 
furnished the following very interesting report to the Principal, who was kind enough 
to favour me with it : " It appears to me that a seedling Angophora started in a 
hollow made by a branch of the Eucalyptus breaking, and that the roots eventually 
reached the ground. The eucalypt is splitting where the Angophora is thickest; 
i.e., where it comes out of the surrounding gum trunk. That part of the Angophora 
which is seen has expanded somewhat close to the point of attachment where seen, 
after the manner of a girdled tree. 
It is a "Swamp Guin," and is provisionally referred to Eucalyptus 
tcreticornis Sm., var. lalifolia Benth. It is the E. amplifolia of Naudin. 
It is not proposed to disturb the graft, and therefore it cannot be stated 
whether the woods of the two trees are in absolute organic union as they are in the 
specimen first described. It may be pointed out that Mr. Musson's specimen is 
especially interesting because two different genera are concerned in the graft. 
Ten years afterwards, Mr. Musson was kind enough to report as follows on 
the specimen : 
The "Natural Graft" still stands, but the host tree is dead, partly in consequence of rubbish 
having been burned too near the trunk and few remaining leaves. 
The " Apple " has bent over a little, opening the cleft near the boss sufficiently to see one side of 
the junction with the host tree 
I think there is no doubt hut that the two trees were in real union just below the thickening, and, 
in consequence of the pressure produced by growth of the Apple, this seems to have been where the two 
