Hello, I'm new to this forum and English is not my native language. I have to write a scientific work about - but not only - (natural) grafting inside single plants. Especially trees, which's limbs merge together at some points (mostly seen in ficus trees or similar). I'd like to know the correct English term for this, because all I read is about grafting between two plants, but not in one plant. Is connation maybe the correct term? Do you know if a single plant behaves the same if it is grafting towards itself and do you have some reference? Kind regards, Bradolan
I don't know the name, but here is a photo from 2009 of its occurrence with two Chamaecyparis trees in Woodinville, WA. I didn't note the species, just that after the trunks fused, the one on the right got larger. I don't think that's very common with this genus - the knowledgeable people I was with seemed very impressed.
Hello, Thank you for this picture and the fast answer. It is really a good one, although it doesn't show exactly what I mean, because as you said, that are two trees (only of the same kind, but that still counts as grafting I think). Still I also need to work on normal grafting or grafting inside the same species, so this picture might help for reasoning, too. Still, I need to name it somehow, when limbs of a single plant "fuse" together. I don't think "fuse" is the correct biological term. And I also don't think grafting is correct, since grafting assumes the resulting plant will have different properties afterwards, which it won't have if it fuses with itself. I'd like to show you what I mean: File:Eglinton fish pond island inosculated Q. petraea.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I can't show you more pictures, as I'm not sure I'm allowed to link them here (copyright and so on). Several websites seem to make money with them. If you'll search for example "ficus tree" or "ficus trunk" in some image search machine, you see limbs connecting to each other, go away again and come back together like if they never did anything else. This is what I mean. Does this still count as grafting? Kind regards, Bradolan
Bradolan, you can't post photos here to which you do not have the rights, but you may link to them. And if my photo is of any use to you, you are welcome to use it wherever. The term used in the photo you posted, is that not it: inosculation? Inosculation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oh my .. thank you very much. That is exactly what I searched for. I did not see the wood for the trees. I didn't look at the filename.
There are a few artists around the world working in this sort of grafting and training of trees. Look up 'live tree sculpting' If you are interested. It is borne out of a long tradition of coppicing and hedgerow making and forcing trees to take certain shapes. Once in a while a tree will do this naturally. It's called pleaching in English when you make a sort of fence of woven branches that take root and then graft onto each other via inosculation, and they do in fact graft back onto the originator if placed in contact. Platanus spp., Salix spp., Populus spp. are all trees that can be grafted this way. I'd imagine many fruit trees could, too. If you can graft it to another tree in the genus, you should be able to graft it to itself.
